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NEW CREATIONS IN 
PLANT LIFE 



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The improved aiiiaryllis, witli blossoms nearly a foot across and 
of great brilliancy 



NEW CREATIONS IN 
PLANT LIFE 



AN AUTHORITATIVE ACCOUNT 

OF THE LIFE AND WORK OF 

LUTHER BURBANK 



BY 
W. S. LIARWOOD 



SECOND EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1907 

All rights reserved 



I LliSKA«Y Of CONGRIESS 
Two Copies Received 

OCT t7 «90r 

i -.Copynffh! Entry 
CLASS/? i(AC„ No. 
COPY 6. 



<^ 



\^ 



Copyright, 1905, 1907 
By The Macmillan Company 



Published September, 1905 
Second Edition, September, 1907 



\ 



JtOount pleasant v^xtii 

J. Horace McFarland Company 
Hariisbut£, Pennsylvania 



t 



'^To Mv V^iit 



PREFACE 

rilHE preparation of this volume has been 
a work of particular pleasure: First, 
because of the unusual interest which has 
centered in the development of the material, 
material which takes its rise in primal places 
and flows in a broad stream outward; and, 
second, and paramount, it has been a pleasure 
because of the contact it has brought with 
the man whose life and achievements it can 
but inadequately portray. 

When the demands of his great work have 
been most exacting, he has never shrunk from 
giving still more of his strength to the illumi- 
nation of obscure points ; when the work has 
worn upon him so that it has taxed his 
energies to the utmost, while care sought out 
the strings of his nerves to play sharp discords 
upon them, he has never failed in patience or 

vii 



PREFACE 

yielded to the irritation that must have swept 
a lesser man oiF his feet. 

For the unfailing courtesy, for the superb 
thoughtfulness, for the rare gift of clarity of 
speech, — for all these, and far more, I am 
under obligation to the man about whom this 
book is written. If it shall be an exposition of 
his great work which shall bring pleasure and 
possibly some measure of profit to those who 
read, and, beyond, if it shall point the way 
to a still wider extension of the work of which 
Luther Burbank is so conspicuous a pioneer 
and leader, I shall indeed be glad. 

W. S. H. 



vin 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND 
EDITION 

^I'^HREE points may be noted in the pre- 
sentation of this new and revised edition 
of "New Creations in Plant Life," which has 
passed through various printings during the 
period since the volume was issued a year and 
a half ago. 

First, the statements in this volume, both 
those which have a scientific and those which 
have a practical bearing, stand unreservedly 
vouched for by Mr. Burbank. 

Second, the interest in the man and his 
work has steadily heightened since the book 
was first issued, and a clearer and more intel- 
ligent appreciation of his great powers has 
been manifest. The interest has been shown 
not only in the practical features but in the 
scientific as well. The more closely his work 

ix 



PREFACE 

has been scanned by those who have been 
both competent and fair, the more com- 
manding it has appeared in its scientific and 
economic value. 

Third, a still closer study of the work dur- 
ing the period since the book was first issued 
demonstrates that this is one of the greatest 
constructive enterprises ever established among 
men. It is beyond the sweep of gigantic cor- 
poration projects, for, while from their de- 
velopment vast good may come, the tempta- 
tion to misuse enormous powers and to sow 
corruption is so overmastering that that which 
must be the active principle in all true prog- 
ress, the constructive, is liable to be overborne 
by that which blocks all progress, the destruc- 
tive. With Mr. Burbank, notably in such 
instances as that of the development of the 
new cactus fully considered later, everything 
is constructive, everything is planned for the 
permanent good of man through all generations. 

To those, and they are very many, who 
have written in print and in private with such 



PREFACE 

cordial and generous appreciation of the book, 
my most hearty thanks are due. To those few 
who have criticized without adequate knowl- 
edge I may only express the sincere hope 
that they may let themselves come to a fuller 
understanding of the man and his work, and 
thus be enabled to see that that which they 
may honestly have thought too high praise 
was, indeed, but a conservative appreciation; 
for he who deals with the life-work of I^uther 
Burbank deals with that which is unique 
among the enterprises of the age, and of a 
noble and unparalleled scope. 

W. S. H. 

Los Gatos. California. 



XT 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

I. Luther Burbank, the Man . 

II. General Methods of Work . 

III. The Creation of New Trees 

IV. The AmarylHs and the Poppy 
V. The Potato and the Poniato 

VI. The Lihes 

VII. Plums and Prunes 

VIII. The Shasta Daisy 

IX. The Thornless Edible Cactus 

X. Certain General Features . 

XI. Breeding for Perfume 

XII. Hardening and Adaptation 

XIII. On the Origin of New Species 

XIV. How May I Do It, Too;— Breeding 

XV. How May I Do It, Too;— Grafting 

XVI. Commercial Aspects of the Work 
xiii 



1 

24 

44 

70 

87 

101 

111 

130 

147 

159 

173 

192 

207 

226 

248 

268 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 




PAGE 


XVII. 


The Carnegie Institution Grant 


. 278 


XVIII. 


A Day With Mr. Burbank 


. 290 


XIX. 


His Personahty . 


. 305 


XX. 


The Plan Books 


. 318 


XXI. 


Theories and Conclusions . 


c 335 


XXII. 


His Place in the World 


. 352 


XXIII. 


The New Opuntias 


. 369 


XXIV. 


The New Work 


. 403 



xiv 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



The improved amaryllis, with blossoms nearly a foot across 
and of great brilliancy . . . frontispiece 

Luther Burbank . . . . . . 1 - 

Twenty thousand new varieties of plums in process of 

development . . . . . . 3(i 

Walnut-leaf variation. To the left, the common English wal- 
nut; to the right, the native California black walnut; in 
the center, the new hybrid " Paradox," bred from 
the other two . . . . . .51 

One of the hybrid chestnuts, bearing nuts at eighteen 

months of age from the seed . . . .62 

A bed of the hybrid poppies . . . . .74 

The central poppy, a brilliant scarlet with purple center, is 
the offspring of the other two. The one to the left, 
Papaver pilosum, a delicate orange ; the one to tlie right, 
Papaver somniferum, the "Bride poppy," a pure white. 
Leaves of each are shown . . . .81 

Wild Arizona potatoes used in breeding, to give strength 

and hardiness to the common potato . . .88 

Potatoes growing upon a tomato vine after grafting upon 

the potato root . . . . . .96 

Aerial potatoes growing upon a potato cion grafted upon a 

tomato plant . . . . . .101 

XV 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 

PAGE 

A rare two-petaled hybrid seedling lily . . . 108 

The development of the plum. The two larger ones are 

seedlings of the other two . . . .115 

The giant plum, not only of largest size but of great richness 

and prolific in bearing . . . . .126 

One of many rows of seedling Shasta daisies from which 
selection is being made. The rows are seven hundred 
feet long . . . . . . .133 

One of the "Shasta" daisies. The blossoms are from four to 

six inches in diameter . . . . .140 

The cactus in the foreground is the ordinary thorny kind. 
Those in the rear are the thornless ones of the same 
species ....... 147 

Cactus tests.— Tornless, hybrid seedling Opuntias, now eight 
weeks old from seed. They will be transplanted later, 
after rigid selection . . . . .151 

What the thornless cactus will displace — A hint of desert 

conditions ....... 154 

One of Mr. Burbank's rare roses . . . .158 

The pineapple quince, a greatly improved variety having the 

flavor of the pineapple ..... 161 

A bed of the new fragrant dahlias .... 176 

The plumcot, created from the plum and the apricot. A 

rare new fruit . . . . • • 208 

The " Climax," one of the rarest plums produced . . 208 

The Phenomenal berry, a new species of great size and rich- 
ness. Individual berries are sometimes nearly three 
inches long ...... 213 

Variation in hybrid poppy leaves. Out of two thousand 

plants no two were alike ..... 220 

xvi 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING 
PAGE 



An outfit for an amateur breeder .... 233 

The "Burbank" and "Tarrytown" cannas under test at 

Santa Rosa, where they originated . . . 245 

Showing method of grafting ..... 252 

Upper part of a tree bearing many grafts. As many as five 
hundred fruits are grown upon a single tree at once, no 
two exactly alike . . . . . .261 

The essentials for amateur grafting .... 268 

The sugar prune, — larger, sweeter, earlier and more pro- 
ductive than the older prunes .... 277 

The re-created wild onion flower, Brodicua capitata, changed 
from a deep purple to purest white and greatly increased 
in size ....... 280 

On the proving grounds at Sebastopol. Pampas grass in the 

center, various bulbous plants in the foreground . 284 

Mr. Burbank pollinating the blossoms of a plum tree . 291 

The original Burbank plum tree. Millions of trees have 

been grown from it .... . 296 

Cultivating the mammoth pieplant. Some leaves are three 

to four feet across. Mr. Burbank is the central figure . 302 

Mr. Burbank's home, at Santa Rosa, California . . 308 

General view of the proving grounds at Sebastopol, show- 
ing many thousands of plants under test . . 327 

The improved everlasting flower to be used in millinery . 330 

Leaves of blackberry hybrid, all grown from seed of one 

plant, showing the remarkable variation . . 344 

One of the few double hybrid clematises . . . 356 

xvii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 



One of the new Opuntias, four years old, eight feet high, 
bearing over four hundred pounds of fruit. Half of one 
leaf put in the ground in April produced over sixty 
leaves by the middle of September . . . 383 

An illustration of the prolific nature of the nevi^ Opuntias, — 

thirty-two fruits growing upon a single leaf . . 394 

Thousands of tender cactus seedlings just out of the ground, 
overtaken, but uninjured, by a severe snow-storm, — a 
proof of their hardiness . . . . .401 

The Gold plum, first Japanese-American hybrid plum; a 

rare fruit . . . . . . .4-07 

The large plum to the right is the result of a cross between 
the wild American beach plum, at the left, and a Japa- 
nese plum. The new plum is much larger than here 
shown and twice as large as the Japanese parent . 410 

A field of the new crimson poppy, the native California 
golden poppy, which Mr. Burbank changed from yellow 
to red . . . . . . . 416 

To the left, the leaf of a wild geranium as Mr. Burbank 
found it; to the right, the leaf as he left it after years 
of selection for greater beauty. The single leaf shows 
the change even more markedly . . . .41!) 

Two seedling walnuts, of the same age, from nuts of the 
same tree, having had precisely the same care ; a strik- 
ing illustration of unevenness in plant growth and of 
the importance of selection . . . .428 

A cactus blossom ...... 430 



XVill 




Luther Burbank 



New Creations in Plant Life 

CHAPTER 1 

LUTHER BURBANK. THE MAN 

TUTHER BURBANK, of whose life, 
-*-^ achievements and methods this book is 
to treat, is the foremost plant-breeder in the 
world. Over two thousand five hundred dis- 
tinct species are in the list of the plants upon 
which he has worked, embracing a large and 
comprehensive field of operations. He has 
also produced more new forms of plant life 
than any other man, and has exerted a 
unique and powerful influence. 

These new forms of plant life may be 
brought into two classes, — those which have 
added to the wealth of nations and enriched 
the dietary of the race, — as new and improved 
nuts, fruits and vegetables; and those which 
have made the world more beautiful, — the new 
and improved forms of flowers. 

Without a university training and with only 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

a fundamental education upon which he has 
builded by wide reading, he yet leads the 
scientific world in the department to which 
he has given his life. He has suffered as few 
men suffer, not only from actual physical 
want and privation but from the unjust criti- 
cism of those who did not comprehend; but 
he has preserved through it all an unshaken 
confidence in the ultimate triumph of all good 
forces in human life. He has been engaged in 
a line of work so novel and so profitable he 
could easily have built up a fortune, yet he 
has subjected himself all his life to the most 
rigid self-denial and sacrifice in order that 
every energy and every resource might be 
devoted to the betterment of the world. 

Luther Burbank was born in the town of 
Lancaster, Massachusetts, not far from the 
city of Boston, on the 7th of March, 1849. 
Two controlling streams met in the forming 
of the main current of his life. From his 
father, a cultivated man of English extraction, 
came an intense love for books; from his 
mother, whose ancestry was Scotch, an ardent 
love for all beautiful forms of life. These two 
hereditary influences have been at work all 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

through his life, — the one broadening, the other 
deepening his nature. 

From the earhest childhood he was passion- 
ately devoted to flowers and to all forms of 
plant life. Very many incidents are related 
illustrative of this. His mother and sisters 
had noticed that whenever he was given a 
flower, while lying in his cradle, he always held 
it with a certain childish tenderness, never 
crushing nor dropping it but keeping it, if 
allowed, until its bloom was faded or its fra- 
grance gone. One day when his sister had 
given him a flower he held it in his tiny fin- 
gers with his usual earnestness until a petal 
fell off". Then, with infinite childish patience, 
he strove to put the petal back in place and 
thus restore the flower. When a little older 
and able to walk, he often chose plants for 
pets instead of animals. He was given a plant 
in a pot, a so-called lobster cactus as the 
variety of cactus was locally known, and for 
hours at a time he trudged about house and 
yard carrying the cactus plant in his little 
arms. One day he stumbled and fell, broke 
the plant from its stem and destroyed the 
pot. It was a day of great sadness, for he 

3 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

was as inconsolable in his grief over the loss 
of the pet plant as another child would have 
been over the death of a bird or a faithful 
dog. 

Strangely enough, a half century later, in 
the prime of his manhood, he has given years 
of his life to the study of other forms of this 
pet of his childhood days, creating a series 
of thornless and bristleless cacti, forming a 
vast reservoir of food for man and for un- 
counted millions of the beasts of tlie field, 
and paving the way for the reclamation of the 
desert places of the earth. That which was 
once a dangerous foe of man and beast be- 
comes, through him, a stanch friend; — it is a 
noble boon to the race. 

Year by year, as he grew into boyhood, his 
love for all the beautiful things in the world 
around him steadily deepened. As soon as he 
was old enough to be placed in school, he at 
once attracted the attention of his teachers by 
his love for study. The love for his school and 
the love for the flowers and the trees and the 
birds were always manifest. And in the ripe 
days of his prime one may see him turn with 
boyish eagerness from the discussion of some 

4 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

deep problem of human life to listen to the 
note of a lark in the sky. 

By the time he had reached the age of 
twelve he had come to a knowledge of the 
outward forms of nature such as few lads ever 
attain at such an age. All the books he could 
command bearing upon any phase of science 
or nature he read and reread. The habit thus 
acquired has lasted. He may not be able to 
tell you the plot of the latest novel, but be 
sure he will be able to talk with you about the 
latest discovery of the scientists and to dissect 
their conclusions with consummate art. I can 
in no way better illustrate the trend of the 
lad's mind at that time than to say that in 
his maturer years the author which he has 
read most and which he quotes more often 
than any other is Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

As a lad, he was not indifferent to the sports 
of other children, and entered heartily into 
many of them, though there was ever a 
greater fascination for him in the open page of 
a book than in rod or gun or ball. And great- 
est of all was the fascination of the natural 
world opening to him as it opens to the heart 
of a poet. 

5 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

In the town of Lancaster there was a well- 
equipped academy to which he was drawn as 
soon as he had finished the common school. 
This he attended during the winter for several 
seasons, spending the rest of the year in work. 
The town had a large and well-stocked library, 
and into this, and into his father's few but care- 
fully chosen books, he delved whenever there 
was opportunity. His father and his father's 
brother, a minister, were personal friends of 
Emerson. The uncle's son, the boy's cousin, 
considerably older, was greatly interested in 
science and was also a personal friend of 
Agassiz, afterward becoming a successful edu- 
cator and a writer of more than local note 
on scientific topics, particularly geology. Be- 
tween the two there was a strong bond of 
friendship. The influence of such surround- 
ings had much to do in shaping the lad's na- 
ture. Year by year environment forces were 
at work, and in them may be seen the proph- 
ecy of the development of this wonderful life. 

During several summers the boy worked in 
the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, in a fac- 
tory. His wage was small and the work was 
hard and irksome, but he even then had his 

6 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

ideals toward which he was working, and he 
kept on and up amidst many discouragements. 
He learned soon, however, that, as there were 
seven days in the week and as it cost him at 
least fifty cents a day to live, he could not get 
along very satisfactorily on a six -day wage of 
fifty cents. The bent of the boy's mind now 
seemed to be tow^ard what his relatives and 
friends thought was invention, but which, 
though it included invention in the ordinary 
meaning of the word, was far beyond this in 
scope. When still younger, he was standing 
one day by the side of a number of his elders 
who were vainly trying to put together a 
mower. One piece of the machinery would 
not fit, and, after much trying, they were giv- 
ing up, when the boy, rarely venturing a word 
of advice to an elder, stepped forward and sug- 
gested how the piece should go. It was put 
in place and the machine moved off. 

When asked how he knew the piece of iron 
belonged in that particular place, he replied 
laconically : 

"Because you couldn't put it anywhere 
else!" 

Studying how he might make both ends 

7 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

meet in the factory on his scant pay, he dis- 
covered a way to construct a machine which 
would do away with the work of at least half a 
dozen men. He made the invention, and his 
delighted employers followed with a substan- 
tial increase in his pay. They predicted for 
him, as did his friends, a brilliant future as an 
inventor, and all urged him to set about such 
a life. He has disregarded the advice of his 
friends in later years, as he did then; and he 
has never found reason for regret, even though 
the way he has traveled has led through pain 
and sacrifice. 

Day by day in the midst of the toil of the 
factory, unswerved from his ideals by the 
promise of greater pecuniary reward, the dom- 
inant chord in his life was always sounding, 
struck as it was by the supreme purpose of his 
soul — to make new things better than the old, 
to make the old ones better than they were. 
All through a life no less scarred with sacrifice 
than adorned with triumph this same chord has 
sounded, deeper and broader in its harmony as 
the years have come, but not more true in the 
creation of marvelous forms of plant life than 
in the making of a machine to quicken and 

8 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

cheapen the process of manufacturing a 
plow. 

But there came a day he never forgot, a red- 
letter day in his calendar. He had left the 
factory and had begun market -gardening and 
seed-raising in a small way. It was far more to 
his taste and in direct line with the future. 
He had noticed that there were a good many 
variations in the green tops of some potatoes 
he was raising, and that in this particular lot 
there was but one which bore a seed -ball. He 
had already begun a close study of the charac- 
teristics of plants, and he at once reasoned 
that if this seed -ball came upon but one of all 
the varying plants, its product, if it should be 
planted, should show still greater variation. So 
he watched this seed -ball with unusual care. 
One day, to his despair, he found that the seed- 
ball was missing. He was about to give up 
the whole matter when it occurred to him he 
would make a search upon the ground. He 
found the seed -ball at last, where it had been 
knocked off probably by some wandering dog 
rushing through the garden. 

From it came the Burbank potato, which 
comparatively few people associate with Luther 

9 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

Burbank, the great plant -breeder. The potato 
which he developed from this seed -ball has 
not only disproved the dictum of those who 
said a potato famine was at hand because of 
the steady deterioration of the world's stock, 
but it has added to the wealth of this nation 
alone upwards of twenty millions of dollars. 
The creator of the new potato sold it to a local 
seedsman for $150. 

It was not long after this that he suffered 
a partial sunstroke in the broiling heat of a 
July day and, seeking a climate where he 
might be able to live an outdoor life without 
fear of a return attack, and where he might 
hope some day to put in effect some of the 
theories of the development of plant life 
already stirring in his brain, he started for 
California, with a slender purse and ten of his 
new potatoes. He reached California in 1875, 
and went north from San Francisco some fifty 
miles to an unimproved valley lying between 
two spurs of the Coast Range Mountains, 
today a rich fruit and farming country. 

He was then twenty-five years of age, slen- 
der, not over-strong, and yet possessed of 
much vitality and endurance. These latter he 

10 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

was soon called upon to put to test. The 
country was new, and the few ranchers and 
farmers had not yet begun to realize the pos- 
sibilities of their region in the way of fruit 
culture. He sought for work, that he might 
get ahead enough to make a start as a nur- 
seryman. He saw the possibilities of the 
country in this line and the promise of a good 
living, and perhaps a competence if he could 
only get established. But work was not easy 
to get. Day after day he sought it and failed, 
and day by day his slender store of money 
ran down. He did all sorts of odd jobs, many 
of them far beyond his strength. He heard of 
a new building to be put up in the frontier 
town. He applied for work. He had no tools, 
but, being promised a job if he had a shing- 
ling hatchet, he invested nearly all of his 
remaining funds in one, only to find, the next 
morning, that the job had gone to some one 
else. 

He found more steady work at last at a 
mere pittance, cleaning out chicken-coops on 
a chicken-ranch. The work was disagreeable 
in the extreme, but he was willing to do any- 
thing that was honorable. At this time he 

11 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

had no place to sleep nights, and for months 
made his bed in a chicken-coop, unable to get 
enough money ahead to pay for regular lodg- 
ings. Occasionally, when work altogether 
failed, he was reduced to absolute want. It 
was his habit at such times to go to the village 
meat market, secure the refuse bones saved for 
dogs, and get from them what meat he could. 

He found steady employment at last in a 
small nursery at a beggarly wage. Not being 
able to hire lodgings, he slept in a bare, damp, 
unwholesome room above the steaming hot- 
house, where for days and nights at a time 
his clothing was never dry. He was passing 
through such privations as those through 
which, in the strange allotments of fortune, 
many another great man has passed. 

The constant exposure and lack of nourish- 
ing food made rapid inroads upon a not too 
strong constitution, and this, with overwork, 
brought on an attack of fever. A woman in 
the neighborhood, herself in straitened cir- 
cumstances, found him one day in such a criti- 
cal condition that she insisted on sharing with 
him the small portion of milk which she could 
afford to spare from the one cow that supplied 

12 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

her fiimily. He protested against taking it 
because he might never be able to repay her, 
and, indeed, there was scant hope in his 
condition that he would live to do it. The 
woman insisted, and the pint of milk a day 
which she brought to him saved his life. 

The man who was to become the foremost 
figure in the world in his line of life, and who 
was to pave the way by his own discoveries 
and creations for others of all lands to follow 
in his footsteps, was a stranger in a strange 
land, close to starvation, penniless, beset by 
disease, hard by the gates of death. And yet 
never for an instant did this heroic figure lose 
hope, never did he abandon confidence in him- 
self, not once did he swerve from the path he 
had marked out. In the midst of all he kept 
an unshaken faith. He accepted the trials that 
came, not as a matter of course, not tamely, 
nor with any mock heroics, but as a passing 
necessity. His resolution was of iron, his will 
of steel, his heart of gold; he was fighting in 
the splendid armor of a clean life. 

It was a wan and haggard figure that rose 
at last from his sick bed and wandered from 
place to place in search of work. Matters 

18 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

shaped themselves gradually, more and more 
in his favor and he went from one odd job 
to another, slowly saving a little money and 
regaining his health. The day came at last 
when he had a bit of a balance in the bank 
and soon after he was able in a small way to 
set up in business for himself. 

He secured a small plot of ground and 
established the nursery which was to become 
famous throughout not only his own state but 
the country at large. His heart was in his 
work now, but there was something else. All 
through these years of early manhood, in the 
midst of discouragement and privation, he 
never let go of the plan of his life — to become 
not merely a raiser of plants but an improver 
and a creator. Even in those first days, as 
chance offered, he began that wonderful series 
of experiments which has astonished the scien- 
tific men of two hemispheres and established 
an epoch in the life of the vegetable kingdom 
from which the future will reckon. 

One day there came to the young nursery- 
man an order in the filling of which he dis- 
played that boldness of plan and audacity of 
execution which have many a time marked his 

14 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

progress. The order was from a man who was 
going to start a large prune ranch. He wanted 
twenty thousand young prune trees to set out. 
It would take in the ordinary course of events 
from two and a half to three years for a nur- 
seryman to raise the trees, but this was a 
hurry-up order; if it was to be filled, it must 
be filled in nine months. 

He took the order. AVith all haste he 
scoured the country for men and boys to plant 
almonds. It was late in the season and the 
almond seed was the only one which would 
sprout at that time among all the trees that 
were suitable for his plans. It grows very 
rapidly, too, and this was taken into account. 
In a comparatively short time the young shoots 
were big enough for budding. Twenty thou- 
sand prune buds were in readiness, were bud- 
ded into the growing almonds, and the young 
trees started forward in their race for the prize. 
When the nine months were up the twenty 
thousand prune trees were ready. Nature had 
been outM^itted, or, better put, had been led to 
outdo herself; the fruit-grower w^as delighted ; 
the young nurseryman was a good many dol- 
lars in pocket. Today, twenty years afterward, 

15 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

one of the finest prune orchards in California 
or the world is growing from these trees. 

It was a concrete illustration of the re- 
sourcefulness of the man and of that which 
has again and again been shown in his later 
life, his supreme indifference to precedent. 

He early established an unvarying rule, 
never to send out anything which was not, so 
far as lay in his power, precisely what it was 
represented to be. So his name became a 
synonym for exact honesty, — if it came from 
Burbank, it was to be depended upon. 

An incident well illustrates the confidence 
men had in him when once they came to know 
him. He was in need of some extra money to 
use in carrying forward a branch of his work. 
He had apphed for a loan unsuccessfully at 
quite a number of places. His very modesty 
and shrinkingness, in the eyes of a business 
man, stood against him. One day, when he had 
given up hope of the loan, he saw a team of 
horses in the distance coming down the dusty 
road. As the team drew near he recognized a 
man who lived in the region, by common repu- 
tation a miserable old skinflint. Hailing from 
the road as he drove up, he called out; 

16 



1 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

"Say, young feller, I've been watchin' you a 
long time. You're alius attendin' to bizness. 
But a man that kin do what you kin do oughter 
have an easier time than you're havin'. Don't 
you need a little extry cash once in a while?" 

Greatly interested in such a query from 
such a man, he answered that he could use a 
little additional money now and then, — in fact, 
he knew where he could put a hundred dollars 
that very day, in a place where it would bring 
in a handsome return. 

Pulling out an old wallet, the so-called skin- 
flint counted out two hundred dollars and 
handed them to the astonished nurseryman. 

"No," as he drove off, "I don't want no 
note, nor no intrust nuther: when you git 
ready to pay it, all right. G'long, there!" 

The years now rapidly passed. The business 
began to yield more handsomely, and yet 
he was less and less satisfied with the outlook. 
In the midst of the exacting demands of his 
work, he yet found time to devote to experi- 
mentation with new forms of plant life, — 
always before him the supreme purpose of his 
life. Reticent by nature, though never secre- 
tive, he did not talk over his new ideas with 

IT 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

any one. No one was to know what he was 
engaged in until such time as he had some- 
thing to show for it. 

As he had opportunity, he read such few 
practical books on botany and the breeding of 
plants as he could find, but these, save in some 
matters of nomenclature and detail, were of 
little aid to him. He soon found out that he 
stood face to face with Nature, and only 
from her lips could he learn her secrets. 

He read Darwin among other scientists, 
and was greatly interested in the Origin of 
Species. In his own mind were developing, at 
the same time, important theories, which must 
be noted in a later chapter. Even as he 
worked the hardest, and all unknown to him- 
self in large measure, his own mind was being 
broadened and deepened. He saw before him 
now something of the possibilities of plant 
creation — his vision was strong and true, 
his perspective never distorted. 

There came another red-letter day in his 
calendar. It was tlie day when he came to the 
formal decision that he would give up his 
nursery business and devote his entire time 
and energies to plant -breeding. As soon as his 

18 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

relatives and friends heard of his decision, they 
entered vehement protest. Wliat greater folly 
conld a man commit than to abandon a busi- 
ness now netting him nearly ten thousand 
dollars a year to embark upon a project at the 
best Quixotic and sure to end in financial 
ruin? It was the same sort of reasoning he 
had listened to when a boy, when his friends 
and relatives pictured a great career as an 
inventor. 

Ridicule, pity, scorn, harsh criticism, all 
were alike unavailing. He listened with pa- 
tience, but went forward in the line he had 
marked out. So one day in the year 1893 he 
found himself free from the exacting demands 
of his business life, his extensive nursery closed 
out. He had entered upon a career which was 
to be even more exacting than this business 
life, but he entered upon it high in hope and 
rich in resolution. 

Slowly he put into effect his plans. Having 
tested a new fruit or flower or an improved 
old one, he kept it back, following in his old 
lines as a nurseryman, until he was absolutely 
sure it was going to do precisely what he said 
it would do. Not until then was he ready to 

19 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

put a new creation before the world. The new 
and improved varieties were sold to bring him 
revenue for the further prosecution of his 
work. The sums for which they sold were 
ridiculously small, considering the time con- 
sumed in their production, often years of the 
most patient study and experimentation, and 
the large revenues that were derived from the 
new creations by the dealers purchasing them. 
Perhaps from one hundred dollars, at the start, 
up to five hundred would be an average. Or- 
ders soon began coming from Europe, where 
he gradually became better known, where., 
indeed, he was appreciated as he had never 
been in his own country. 

His income rose steadily, but it did not 
match his outlay. There were laborers' wages 
to pay, supplies to be bought, funds provided 
for paying for the services of collectors in for- 
eign lands, on the lookout for new kinds of 
plants. His reputation was advancing, but 
year by year he was falling behind and en- 
croaching more and more upon the store set 
by for the rainy day. 

Opposition now came from many quarters. 
Not only did his friends see the fulfilment of 

20 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

their predictions,— some of them very kindly 
telhng him so, — bnt people who had heard of 
some of the strange things he had done, and 
who had not the breadth of vision to see what 
manner of man this was, pronounced him a 
charlatan,— a man who was creating all manner 
of unnatural forms of life, monstrosities, in- 
deed a distinct foe to the race. A minister in- 
vited ISIr. Burbank to listen to a sermon on 
his work, and when the guest was in the pew 
denounced him in bitter fashion as a man who 
was working in direct opposition to the will of 
God, in thus creating new forms of life which 
never should have been created, or if created, 
only by God himself. 

Now and again arose some pseudo- scientific 
man who, professing unlimited friendship, 
sought for means to filch the rapidly increasing 
reputation. Others visited him with the cov- 
ert purpose of exposing him as a charlatan 
after inspecting his methods, but, confounded 
by what they saw, went down the httle hedge- 
bordered walk that leads to his quiet home 
shamed into silence. From various sources 
came ofTcrs of aid ; but the keen vision of the 
man read every proposition in its spirit as well 

21 



' NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

as its letter and detected unerringly the efforts 
which, while apparently in his behalf, were in 
reality essentially selfish, planned so that others 
might profit by liis experiences. There were 
strings to them ; he would have none of them. 
He could divide responsibility, and apportion 
duty, but he could not yield authority. It 
would be fatal to have any other will than his 
own in command. 

But he was learning now that, to accomplish 
the work he had mapped out, and so to leave 
it that others could take it up where he left it 
and carry it forward, it was imperative that he 
have assistance. Already many millions of 
dollars had been added to the national wealth 
because of his improved fruits. Already the 
whole world was being brightened by his 
flowers. And yet, if he should be able to work 
without handicap, the future promised far 
greater results than the past. Now and again, 
too, he was bitterly admonished that he could 
not work eighteen hours out of the twenty- 
four. Occasional illnesses came. He found 
that the nature he loved so well could chide 
as well as cheer. Several times he was laid 
by with dangerous nervous breakdowns. 

22 



LUTHER BURBANK, THE MAN 

At this point a plan was unfolded to him, 
considered somewhat at length in a later chap- 
ter, for substantial assistance from the Car- 
negie Institution in a manner which would 
leave him absolutely his own master and 
would enable that organization to become a 
silent partner in the furtherance of his plans. 

Thus the way opened to a maximum of 
eftort at a minimum of waste. 



•sJS 



CHAPTER II 

GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

■ BEFORE passing to the individual crea- 
•^-^ tions of Mr. Burbank, it will be of inter- 
est to consider the general plan of his life- 
work, reserving for later chapters the minutige 
of the methods, so presented and so fortified 
by advice from Mr. Burbank that the ama- 
teur, no less than the professional, may receive 
suggestions for the prosecution of plant-breed- 
ing, one of the most fascinating occupations 
in the world, and one full of great practical 
possibilities. Indeed, as Mr. Burbank puts it, 
results of enormous value to the race may at 
any time come from the work of any man 
who takes up plant -breeding with patience 
and intelligent interest. 

The aim of Mr. Burbank, aside from that 
paramount object always overshadowing all 
else, to give aid to the race, is threefold: 

1. The improvement of old varieties of 
fruits, flowers, grasses, trees and vegetables. 

24 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

2. The merging of wild, or degenerate, types 
of plant life with tame, or cultivated ones, in 
order that the union may be of service to both. 

3. The creation of absolutely new forms of 
life, unknown to the world before, — the highest 
act of the plant-breeder. 

The general character of his work is in- 
cluded under two heads: 

1. Breeding. — This, in its basic meaning, 
consists in uniting two plants to give birth to 
a third. A thousand and one things must be 
taken into account, all accumulating through 
hereditary influences and environment, and 
reaching out through all the future life of the 
plant; but, for present consideration, the chief 
act is parental. Breeding is accomplished by 
sifting the pollen of one plant upon the stigma 
of another, this act, poUenation, resulting in 
fertilization. Nature, in her own mysterious 
ways, bringing forth the new plant. 

2. Selection. — This consists in eternally 
choosing the best and rejecting the worst. 
It is co-equal in importance with breeding, 
the one supplementary to the other at all 
points. 

The breeding of plants is not a new art. 

25 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

Generally speaking, however, those who have 
carried it on have worked in small quarters, 
perhaps in gardens or conservatories, usually 
with comparatively few varieties. Mr. Bur- 
bank early saw that this was slow work, that 
it would take the years of many lifetimes to 
accomplish what he had laid out before him. 
The sending of telegrams was once confined 
to a single message, one way, in one direction. 
Even this was a wonderful thing, but it was 
slow, and so there was devised a system of 
sending many messages upon the single wire 
in both directions at the same time. 

Some such transformation as this he has 
wrought in plant-breeding. 

Instead of one or two experiments under 
way at the same time, he may have five hun- 
dred at once, all requiring constant supervi- 
sion, many of them extending over a period 
of perhaps ten years before they come to frui- 
tion. Instead of having a few square feet of 
ground or a few pots under glass, he uses 
acres of ground, if necessary, in a single test. 
In place of contenting himself with a half 
dozen, or even fifty plants, in making a given 
test, he uses if necessary a million, all of them 

26 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

pressing forward in a million similar ways, 
toward the same end. And out of the million 
he saves perhaps in the last sifting but one, 
and that one the best of all. 

Running through all the work is the con- 
stant effort to break up old habits of life. Mr. 
Burbank sees two plants of the same, or it may- 
be widely differing, species. He sees that 
neither one is living up to its opportunities. 
For one reason or another they may have 
made no perceptible progress, possibly for 
centuries; or else it may be they have been 
as slowly going upward from some poorer 
estate and have not had sufficient help. He 
knows that back of each one of these plants 
lies a long and varied history, full of incidents, 
replete in experiences as strange in their way 
and as subtle as any which come to man. 
This past of the plant has produced the plant 
of today — tomorrow it must be changed. 

Just as into the life of a man long inured to 
bad habits, the son of evil parents, tracing his 
lineage backward through a century of sin, 
just as there must come into this hfe some 
tremendous shock, be it a death, a terror, a 
great love or an overpowering hate, completely 

27 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

changing the course of his hfe and making an 
abiupt break in the generations of crime, so in 
a gentler but none the less powerful manner 
the plant must have the overpowering shock of 
re-creation, it must irrevocably break with the 
past. As in the case of the man, so with the 
flower. The initial shock and subsequent 
change may be followed by a reaction and a 
return in some measure to the old order of 
things; but just as care and patience and wise 
living and the higher aid may help the man 
back and steady him in a course of right living, 
so the plant, though it rebel at first, finally 
becomes fixed in its new ways and starts 
forward to enrich or glorify the world. 

The very least of Mr. Burbank's labor is the 
actual breaking up of the plant's life by the 
shock of re-creation, the vastest in its scope 
that a life can bear, such shock as even death 
does not bring, for it is death and life in one, 
the death of the old and the birth of the new. 
But this, however grave a change, is only an 
incident in the work. He must study the 
plant in all its relations. He must know its 
past intimately. He must take into account 
ten thousand past tendencies. He must look 

28 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

to the future of the new plant and see in what 
manner it is to fill out its new place in the 
world among its fellows and amidst perhaps 
radically different environments. These plants 
are like children. To know them you must 
know their ancestry ; and to know their ances- 
try affords at least some hint of their future. 
In a plant, this past, this heredity which Mr. 
Burbank, more clearly than it was ever set 
forth before, pronounces "the sum of all past 
environments," is perhaps more fixed than that 
of a child's past, because it has not had so many 
obvious disturbances. It has not been subject 
to the inconsistencies of human love and its 
strange selections. This knowledge of the past 
of the plant and this intimate study of its life 
and the related life of other plants are among 
the factors which help to give Mr. Burbank 
the commanding place he holds in the world. 

When the past of the plant has been broken 
up, then comes the turning of its life forces 
into its new channels. Indeed, when we begin 
to search for the secret of Mr. Burbank's 
success, we find that it lies deep, and sweeps 
forward with a powerful hold upon the very 
sources of life itself. I'erhaps the flower he is 

29 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

for the time considering has had a small, insig- 
nificant blossom all its life, all the life, anyway, 
that is recorded by man. Its life tendencies 
have centered and culminated, so to speak, in 
this pitifully inadequate bloom. The blossom 
is not only small and unattractive in form but 
weak in color, hard by the realm of the outcast 
weeds. But he has seen in it great possibil- 
ities; swiftly he sets about its improvement. 
Possibly he sees that by combining it with 
some near related flower friend he may make 
it lovelier, perhaps he decides that the only way 
to do is to pick out the very best of its kind 
from amonff a tliousand or ten thousand 
plants and from this best one, poor though it 
may be, go on and on in a constant succession 
of upward selections from the plants that 
follow the seeding, until at last he brings 
forth the blossom he sought, beautiful, large, 
richer in color, fine and velvety in texture, a 
royal addition to the blossoms of the world. 
It takes long to do this, — perhaps twenty 
years. Twenty years to produce a new flower? 
Certainly, why not? Is it not worth it? Not 
that he may spend his whole time for that 
term on a single plant, — a whole series of them 

30 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

is in process of development at once, hundreds 
of varieties. But it is years in almost every 
case before the end is reached, — so slow the 
work of selection from year to year, this eter- 
nal choosing of the best plants from the best. 
And there are many obstacles. AVhen two 
plants are united to produce a third, no human 
intelligence can predict just what will follow. 
You have in the hollow of your hand a dozen 
seeds from one of your choicest apples. It had 
reddened in the autumn sun on a tree you had 
known since boyhood. You had watched it 
blossom in pink beauty in the springtime of 
other years, had seen its fruit develop in the 
mellowing summer, had watched its bare 
branches tossed in the gale when the winter 
snows lay deep at its feet. Here in your hand 
lie the seeds of this apple. It may be you are 
a thousand miles away from the old liome 
where the apple tree is growing. It would be 
a rare delight for you, transplanted to another 
region, and for your children after you, to raise 
another tree from the seeds of the old friend. 
So you plant your twelve seeds to rear on a 
new soil the old friend, and not one of them 
comes into a life in any particular like the 

31 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

life of the old tree at home — indeed, it may 
turn out not one of them bears fruit fit for the 
tongue. 

So it may be with a new life from cross-bred- 
ing and selection, — the end cannot always be 
foretold. But Mr. Burbank does not content 
himself with the use of two or three plants as 
stock, taking chances on their failure to make 
progress. Many men have used a few plants 
and have found certain results following, and 
now and again has arisen one who, from his 
few experiments, has reached certain results 
which entitle his deductions, he believes, to be 
known thereafter as laws. Mr. Burbank has 
never worked in this way. He early saw that 
to carry on his plans in the broadest and best 
manner, to avoid the delays incident to a 
failure of a single plant to show improvement, 
he must work with thousands where necessary, 
indeed, with tens of thousands; indeed, more 
than this, with a million plants if needs be. 
For example, in breeding lilies he has used as 
high as five hundred thousand plants in a 
single test. Out of this enormous number 
tliere naturally were great variations, and so 
before his eyes spread out a vast panorama, 

3^ 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

rich in varied opportunities for initial selec- 
tion. Out of this initial selection he makes 
final choice of the best. 

Sometimes he has marked out a certain 
line of life for a flower. He has bred and se- 
lected to that end. For a time all goes as he 
had planned, but suddenly a new trait de- 
velops, something which completely throws all 
former plans out of gear. He does not aban- 
don the test, but watches with the intensest 
interest the new development. If the plant 
persists in its way, — ^and the new way is 
better, — he leaves the old and follows the new. 
No man is quicker to give up, when convinced 
that giving up is best. But he is not con- 
vinced easily; — the evidence against him must 
be unanswerable. Now and then out of the 
muck of some slum, reeking with moral filth, 
and developing with unwholesome rapidity 
the seeds of anarchy and crime, a white, pure 
life springs up, persists, maintains its guard 
against all temptations, comes back, mayhap, 
in later years to help redeem its birthplace. 
And so in a similar way a flower sometimes 
breaks away from the line of life all logic and 
reason would say it should follow. 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

The new plant may develop certain charac- 
teristics like those of one parent, certain others 
like those of the other parent. It may inherit 
length of stem from one, breadth of leaf from 
the other, or it may have stem and leaf wholly 
unlike either. And this latter is frequently 
the end sought, — to produce a different type 
from that of either and from that produce by 
long selection a type superior to either parent. 
Very much of breeding is breaking up. 

I recall with interest a conversation with a 
gentleman in the city of London concerning 
the terrible depravity among the young men 
of that city. There were at that time fully 
eight hundred thousand young men in the 
city between the ages of eighteen and twenty- 
five. He was perhaps better acquainted with 
the youth of the greatest city in the world 
than any other man in it. He said, as the re- 
sult of his years of experience, that, but for 
the inflow of country blood into the veins of 
London, London life would become practi- 
cally extinct in three generations, — so vast 
the vice. 

Just as this, and all other great cities, are 
strengthened physically, mentally and, indeed, 

34 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

morally, by the influence of those who are 
born and reared in country places, so, many 
times, a plant which has long lived in a care- 
less civilization having lost its vitality, needs a 
new infusion of blood. Mr. Burbank has ever 
been a close student of all the outward forms 
of nature, as well as of all her strange inner 
life. All through all the years he has been 
working upon the flowers and plants he has 
found in the open, using them frequently for 
this very purpose to strengthen the strain of 
some over- civilized plant needing the fresh 
impulse of the wild, strong neighbor of the 
mountains or forest. Collectors in all quarters 
of the world, too, are steadily on the lookout 
to provide him with plant life from their re- 
gions, sometimes wild, sometimes taine, with 
which to make combinations or developments. 
So he is confined to no one species nor to 
any one line of combinations. The whole 
world is his field, and he makes his selections 
and forms his combinations in absolute dis- 
regard of all precedent. The end in view is 
the point, how to reach it most directly. It 
may be along so - called scientific lines, it may 
be in absolutely new and original paths, — 

35 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

more likely the latter, — but the means are the 
non-essentials, the end is paramomit. 

It will be seen that in order to accomplish 
the results that are changing in many ways 
the plant life of the world and opening the 
way to still greater changes, something else 
must enter into the matter than mere observa- 
tion, however keen, than knowledge, however 
deep, than experience, however broad. And 
this strange, intangible thing, for want of a 
better term, we call intuition. 

There comes a day each year in ]VIr. Bur- 
bank's work when the fruit trees under test, 
for example, must come up for scrutiny. 
Selection is to be put to one of its uses. 
Selection, selection of the best, must be ever 
operative from the time the plant is first 
chosen from its fellows; — it is the continual 
survival of the fittest; but now comes selec- 
tion on a larger scale. Perhaps there are a 
hundred thousand of these fruit trees one or 
two years of age. They have been planted at 
Mr. Burbank's proving grounds at Sebastopol, 
a few miles from his home in Santa Rosa. 
They have been cared for with patience and 
with trained minds working over them, and 

36 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

now has come their crucial test: each one 
must pass in review before the eye of their 
master. 

In the ordinary course of plant -breeding 
each one of these hundred thousand plants 
would need to be grafted, or budded, each one 
would need individual care. It would require 
at least five years before the final test would 
come and a showing be made of the value, or 
the worthlessness, of each particular tree. 
While no such test in a single experiment has 
ever been made, it may be stated in general 
terms that to graft and carry through to the 
end of the five-year period a hundred thousand 
trees would involve an outlay in actual money, 
and in rental value of the large area of ground 
necessary at least ten dollars per tree — a total 
of one million dollars. 

This is saved by Mr. Burbank in one work- 
ing day. It is saved by that faculty which 
is best expressed by the term intuition. 
With assistants to bring and carry away the 
tiny slender trees, perhaps now grown to a 
height of one to three feet, he passes upon the 
hundred thousand in a single day, going over 
them with lightning-like rapidity, challenging 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

them the instant they meet his eye, determin- 
ing instantly whether or not they are fit to 
Hve. This is selection in one of its most im- 
portant forms and carried on as it never has 
been carried on before. 

Instantly he detects faults and as quickly 
determines excellencies. How does he do it? 
How does a child know enough to shun an 
evil man? How does a maiden know whether 
the man setting siege to her heart is to be 
trusted with her life? How does a man of 
sensitive fiber know instantly, without word 
or sign, that his traveling companion is a cut- 
throat by nature, whether or not he wear a 
bandit's garb? 

Mr. Burbank decides upon his trees by in- 
tuition. He puts a case this way: 

You may meet a hundred men, a thousand, 
or even ten thousand men upon the street of 
a great city, and instantly, without taking into 
account any particular feature, you know that 
they are different. No matter how similar in 
general, the line of difference is absolute. A 
hundred men pass before a merchant seeking 
a man for a position of trust — he can tell at a 
glance and with seldom an error whether or 

38 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

not he is going to want any one of them. He 
does not know how — he simply utihzes his 
intuition; and ISIr. Burbank ean teil his trees 
with even greater accuracy. 

One day a loyal friend laughingly suggested 
a test. He was not in doubt as to JMr. Bur- 
bank's word, but he would like visual demon- 
stration. So a series of trees was passed 
before ^Ir. Burbank in the usual way. These 
he instantly separated into good, mediocre 
and poor. They were all grafted or budded 
in the usual way and then, after several years, 
when the time for final test came, the results 
showed that, in every instance, he had decided 
the precise nature of the tree and its relative 
value. 

When the long period of a given test has 
been concluded, the rejected plants, shrubs 
or trees are gathered in large bonfires and 
burned, and the ground stands clear for an- 
other test. In a single year as many as four- 
teen of these huge bonfires have been lighted 
upon the hills of Sebastopol, consuming 
hundreds of thousands of plants. And out 
of all that entered the test, probably not 
more than one or two have been saved, — all 

39 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

the rest have been rejected because they did 
not show improvement over old forms, because 
they did not promise to add anything to the 
beauty or the utihty of the world. One plant 
out of five hundred thousand, all the rest 
destroyed, the results of all the labor of a 
decade ending in smoke, — no wonder the 
people living hard by, before they came to 
know what it all meant, pronounced this 
strange man going up and down their country 
lanes so gently and silently, a wild, erratic 
creature — indeed, more than one sagely held 
him bereft of all sound judgment. 

Before passing to a more detailed considera- 
tion of Mr. Burbank's great achievements it 
will be of interest to note briefly some of his 
leading creations. The list includes: 

The improved thornless and spiculess edible 
cactus, food for man and beast, to be the 
reclamation of the deserts of the world; the 
primus -berry, a union of the raspberry and 
blackberry, the first recorded instance of the 
creation of a new species, together with the 
phenomenal berry created from the California 
dewberry and the Cuthbert raspberry, and the 
plumcot, the union of the plum and the 

40 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

apricot, all three the accomplishment of what 
had been said to be an impossibility; a plum 
with no pit, one with the flavor of a Bartlett 
pear, one having a rare fragrance, many plums 
of great 's alue, rapidly replacing older varie- 
ties ; a walnut with a shell so thin that the birds 
visited the branches and destroyed the nuts, 
necessitating the reversion of the process to 
make the shell of the right thickness; a 
walnut bred with no tannin in its meat, the 
colorinof matter of the skin which has a dis- 
agreeable taste; a tree which grows more 
rapidly than any other tree ever known in the 
temperate zones of the world; the Shasta 
daisy, a blossom five to seven inches in diame- 
ter, made out of a wild field daisy, a Japanese 
and an English daisy; gladioli of greatly 
enhanced beauty, taught to bloom around 
their entire stem like a hyacinth instead of 
the old way, on one side; a dahlia with its 
disagreeable odor driven out and in its place 
the odor of the magnolia blossom ; a calla with 
fragrance of the Parma violet, and a scentless 
verbena given the intensified fragrance of the 
trailing arbutus; a chestnut tree which bears 
nuts in eighteen months from time of seed- 

41 



J 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

planting", fruit trees which will withstand freez- 
ing in bud and flower; a poppy so increased 
in size that it measures ten inches across its 
brilliant bloom; an amaryllis bred up from 
two to three inches to nearly a foot in diam- 
eter; a calla increased in size until it measures 
ten to twelve inches in breadth, and then, the 
process being reversed, bred down to less than 
two inches; the white blackberry, a rare and 
beautiful fruit and as toothsome as beautiful; 
thousands of varieties of lilies. He has greatly 
improved the plums, pears, apples, cherries, 
grapes, quinces and peaches by selection and 
breeding; has developed many varieties of 
flowers, improving them in color, hardiness 
and yield; and has added much to the pro- 
ductiveness and edibility of vegetables. Pie- 
plant with leaves four feet in diameter, bearing 
every day in the year; a prune three or four 
times larger than the ordinary French prune 
and greatly enriched; the pomato, an improve- 
ment on the poisonous potato ball, producing 
a rare fruit which grows upon the top of a 
potato; blackberries without thorns; the im- 
proved Australian star flower, one of the 
everlasting varieties which is to be used for 

4S 



GENERAL METHODS OF WORK 

the decoration of ladies' hats; a larkspur 
greatly enlarged in size and given a delightful 
odor ; many improved varieties of grasses ; 
improved tobacco; — these are some of the 
works which have come from his hand ; others 
to yield even far more important results are 
now under way. 

To study more closely some of the won- 
derful achievements of this man is like 
opening successive doors into some strange 
vast castle wliere every apartment is the 
scene of a miracle. 



i3 



CHAPTER III 

THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

A ^lONG the thousands of people who visit 
-^^^- Mr. Burbank's home from year to year 
are many who come out of idle curiosity, some 
who are prominent in scientific lines, whom he 
delights to welcome if they are sincere, some 
who come prepared to find fault and to over- 
throw, if possible, what has been built up. 
One day when there came a man w^ho had 
been deeply interested in forestry, conversa- 
tion fell upon the breeding of trees, the pro- 
duction of new and improved varieties of trees 
by means of cross-fertilization and selection. 

The visitor had decided views upon the 
subject, and at once raised the question of the 
feasibility, even of the possibility, of any suc- 
cessful experimentation in tree- breeding, such 
as that Mr. Burbank had carried on in other 
plant life. In the first place, the experiments 
would need to be carried over through a series 
of generations, and, so slow the growth of the 

44 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

trees, the man who began them would long 
have been dead before anything like important 
results would have been attained, thus largely 
eliminating continuity of effort and satisfac- 
tory personal supervision. Again, what was 
there to be gained in attempting to improve 
the trees of the world as they stand? And, 
again, there was the improbability of anything 
like satisfactory results in any fertilization — 
the whole scheme was interesting but specula- 
tive. Nor was there any practical bearing, — 
where could there be found any scientific 
value in the plan? 

In all lines of JMr. Burbank's work the most 
satisfactory answer to the arguments of those 
who hold that, because such and such a thing 
has never yet been accomplished, therefore, it 
cannot be accomplished, is a fact. It was so 
in this instance. All that was necessary to do 
was to point to a single row of trees standing 
in front of his home at Santa Rosa, just out- 
side the white fence that surrounds his 
grounds. They are noble trees, tall, wide- 
spreading, stately, pleasant to look upon, dig- 
nified and substantial as trees go, not weak or 
irresolute, possessing that indefinable attribute 

45 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

which, even in trees, we call character. These 
trees answered every argument advanced. 
They were the result of breeding and selec- 
tion ; they had not been long in growing, not 
over a dozen years; they were economically 
important. 

Some ten or fifteen years before, Mr. Bur- 
bank had studied the question of tree improve- 
ment with great care. All sides of the plant 
life of the world appeal to him. If he can see 
a chance for improvement, it matters not to 
him what the obstacles in the way or what the 
contentions of those who are chained to tradi- 
tions. He had long seen a chance for marked 
improvement in certain varieties of the wal- 
nut. He took an English walnut and a com- 
mon California black walnut, as types on 
which to work, crossed them by fertilization, 
raised seedlings from these, then selected the 
very best of the progeny; and so bred for- 
ward, ever picking out those which ap- 
proached nearest his ideal until, at last, he 
had a set of hybrid seedlings which he was 
willing to trust to themselves. 

A half dozen of the trees were set out in 
the hard earth in front of his house in the 

46 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

street, where they would receive no cultivation 
and no irrigation in days of drought. They 
were left to shift for themselves. Fourteen 
years passed and, in 1905, the trees had be- 
come nearly eighty feet in height, their branch- 
spread was fully seventy-five feet, their trunks 
were fully two feet in diameter at the height 
of a man's head, and not much less than that 
at the point of the first branch, some twelve 
to fifteen feet above the ground. The wood 
is of fine grain, hard, very compact, having a 
lustrous, silky effect and taking a high polish. 
Sometimes the annual growth will be an inch 
or more, the successive layers giving to the 
sawn timber interesting and novel effects. 
The wood is suitable for furniture manufac- 
ture, for inside furnishings of houses, or for 
any place where open ornamental woodwork 
treatment is employed. For fuel the wood 
gives a steady, strong heat, combining com- 
parative ease in cutting with the hardness 
essential for good burning. 

Just across the street from Mr. Burbank's 
home stands another row of walnut trees. They 
have been growing thirty-one years, about twice 
as long as the ones on IMr. Burbank's side of 

47 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

the road. They stand about twenty feet high, 
they are six or eight inches in trunk diameter. 
These trees belong to a past generation; the 
noble trees on his side of the road are of the 
progressive today. In fourteen years the new 
tree grew six times as much as the older tree 
had grown in thirty years. In addition to 
their specifically economic value, the new 
trees are very beautiful, making an ideal tree 
for shade in private grounds, for an avenue 
approaching some country estate, to over-arch 
in gothic strength some beautiful city street. 
Along wdth the production of this tree 
which Mr. Burbank named the "Paradox" he 
worked on a different combination, though 
produced in the same way. The Paradox was 
particularly suited to regions like California, 
where winters are not severe. He wanted 
another tree, as rapid in growth, as fine for 
timber, as valuable for fuel, which would grow 
in any climate where the hardy northern black 
walnut would grow. So he joined together the 
native California black walnut and the old- 
fashioned New England black walnut, produc- 
ing a new hybrid which he named the "Royal." 
This tree has answered all the demands made 

48 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

upon it, and is fully equal to the Paradox. I 
recall seeing one of these Royal trees standing 
isolated in the front yard of a fruit ranch on 
the road to Sebastopol. It had been set out, a 
tiny sapling, at about the same time the trees 
were set out in the street in front of Mr. Bur- 
bank's home, and in the dozen years it had 
grown to magnificent proportions, completely 
dwarfing the other trees in the vicinity, even 
the large native live-oaks which are so conspic- 
uous a feature of the northern California land- 
scape. Each of the new walnuts grows in 
comely fashion, having no bad habits and 
readily yielding to the pruning-knife or to 
training, in case a branch shows any signs of 
ungraceful way^vardness. 

In a general way, the physical characteristics 
of each tree are quite like those of the other. 

These trees have been bred for purely com- 
mercial ends, though they possess rare beauty 
as well. The nuts, at first, were not thought 
to have any special value, the object in the 
scheme of breeding being to develop the tree 
itself rather than its fruit, but, as the experi- 
ment progressed, it was found that certain of 
the seedlings produced fine hybrid walnuts, 

49 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

different in form from the parent nuts and far 
more abundant, not a market nut though with 
a dehghtful flavor. The leaves upon the trees, 
as is noted in another chapter, are of many inter- 
esting varieties, and when rubbed in the fingers 
or crushed, or even when merely handled, give 
out a delightful fragrance somewhat like that 
of the apple, but as powerful and lasting as 
that of a rose or a lily. 

But to come to the main life-plan of the 
new trees, it appears that they are in some 
ways the most important contribution Mr. 
Burbank has made to the specifically commer- 
cial life of the world. A simple computation 
will illustrate this, — the results are so remark- 
able as to challenge one's credulity, but they 
are results based solely upon facts, unadorned 
by any speculation. 

Mr. Burbank says that for the best commer- 
cial purposes the trees of either variety should 
be set out not less than forty feet apart, in 
order to allow ample space for eacli. The 
root system is very extensive, and there must 
be plenty of room for each tree below ground, 
as well as large allowance for the spread of the 
branches. About thirty-six trees to the acre on 

50 




Walnut-leaf variation. To the left, common F.ng-lish walnut; to 
the rifjht, the native California black walnut ; in the center, the new 
hybrid "Paradox," bred from the other two. 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

suitable walnut soil should produce the best 
results. At the end of twelve years each tree 
will offer a clear trunk without branches which, 
when stripped of its outer slabs and squared, 
will be at least fifteen feet long by a foot and a 
half square. This will give three hundred feet 
of clear timber, board measure, per tree. Black 
walnut lumber has been steadily disappearing 
from the market. Year by year it has as steadily 
increased in price until it has now become one 
of the rare woods, running in cost from $200 
per thousand feet, board measure, to $600 
or $700 per thousand feet for particularly fine 
pieces. 

Taking but $250 as the average price of 
black walnut lumber per thousand, certainly a 
conservative figure, at the end of the twelve- 
year period each tree is worth approximately 
$80. The acre yield would be $2,880. For an 
average farm of 160 acres the revenue for the 
twelve years, with no outlay save the cost of 
planting, not over twenty-five cents per tree, 
taxes upon the land, and interest upon money 
invested, would be a little over $460,000. This 
does not take into account the value of the 
branches, and the refuse slabs of the mill-saw- 

51 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

ing, which for fuel would amount to at least 
four cords per tree — about $24,000 for the 
total farm, or a grand total for the 160 acres 
for lumber and fuel amounting to $485,000. 

These figures seem absolutely preposterous, 
but it must be borne in mind that the trees 
are now to be seen growing at the end of a 
fourteen-year period, and that every item has 
been carefully verified; — hence the conclusion 
is legitimate, even if staggering. Naturally, 
should everybody go in for hybrid walnut 
raising, the price of this now rare lumber would 
be reduced, but, so valuable is it in so many 
ways, — for furniture, bank and office furnish- 
ings, dwelling interiors, for wainscoting and 
ceilings where costly woods are sought, — and 
so remarkable is it as a producer of wood for 
fuel, it is not at all likely that there would 
soon be a glut in the market. 

In conversation with a practical manufac- 
turer of lumber to whom this new work of 
Mr. Burbank was a revelation, he raised the 
point that, so far as his knowledge went, fast- 
growing trees were usually trees of soft grain 
which were not suitable for fine finishing. 
The strange fact is, however, that these new 

52 



1 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

trees have apparently defied all precedent, — 
they are not only of phenomenal rapidity of 
growth but they preserve all the hardness, 
tenacity and evenness of grain of their slow- 
growing ancestors. When I raised this point 
in conversation with Mr. Burbank, he sprang 
up from his chair in his characteristically ener- 
getic manner, was out of the room in a trice, 
and as swiftly returned from his repair -shop 
bearing a piece from a huge branch which had 
been cut off from one of the trees. It had 
been roughly squared by the workman and 
part of one side had been planed. The wood 
was unusually heavy to the hand, more like 
some dense tropic wood and very hard. It 
was of a beautiful color, the finish even by the 
plane alone showing its possibilities for taking 
a high polish. It will make a rare wood in its 
lighter color and will assume the darker wal- 
nut color when it is soaked for many months 
in water, as the black walnut is soaked before 
sawing in order to give it the peculiar dark 
hue. In point of fact, however, there are no 
doubt many who would prefer the lighter 
satiny tints to the darker. The heavy annual 
growth of the tree, forming such large layers, 

53 



1 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

adds another and distinctive note of interest 
to the grain of the finished wood. 

In order to secure the opinion of practical 
men upon the new wood, samples were sub- 
mitted to wood - workers, furniture finishers, 
carvers, painters, and merchant lumbermen. 
It was particularly interesting to note the ex- 
pression upon the faces of these matter-of-fact 
men as they saw, the first of all industrialists 
to look upon it, this new factor in the manu- 
facturing forces of the world. After the initial 
exclamation of wonderment, out would come 
a pocket rule, to measure the annular growth, 
each man seeming to doubt his own eyes. 
Then a sharp knife would be whipped out to 
test the wood for hardness ; or, if it were a 
painter or finisher at work, brushes were at 
once dropped and a close and critical exam- 
ination and test of the grain of the wood 
followed, volleys of questions being fired 
meanwhile. 

Welding together many opinions expressed 
by these practical men, these statements may 
be taken as the consensus: 

The production of a hard wood of the 
character of this at such a phenomenal rate of 

54- 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

growth would be considered an impossibility 
w^ithoiit the evidence of a man's own eyes. 

The new wood is as hard as the old-fash- 
ioned black walnut, somewhat harder when 
fully seasoned. 

It has a finer grain than the old walnut and 
takes a higher polish. 

It is nearer the mahogany grades than any 
other walnut and remarkably like some of 
the tropic mahoganies. 

Its possibilities when quartered or when 
sawn for other novel effects in veneers, are 
large. 

The width of the annual growth makes it 
peculiarly suitable when sawn in long strips 
for wainscoting and hke effects. 

While the fiber of the wood is hard, it is 
fine for working as well as for polishing. 

Nearly every man spoke of the possibilities 
of this new tree in rapidly re -foresting the 
earth, as well as of the fact that it would give 
a marked impetus to the use of hard wood 
for fuel, while marking what might be called 
a new era in manufacturing. 

The trees of these two varieties which Mr. 
Burbank has produced have been given no 

55 



1 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

attention whatever. It is thought by culti- 
vation and irrigation they would probably be 
led to produce as much timber in eight or 
ten years as they have done in fourteen years 
with no aid. The Paradox will grow in any 
climate similar to that of California, anywhere 
where the English walnut will grow ; the 
Royal will grow anywhere in the United 
States, or any other country, where the hardy 
New England black walnut will grow. 

The secret of these wonderful trees lies in 
the fact that Mr. Burbank selected them from 
the most rapid -growing of all the many 
thousands of seedlings he had under test, at 
the same time taking into account all the 
other characteristics that were essential. Enor- 
mous rapidity of growth, so to use the words, 
in the early life of the seedling has been main- 
tained in after years so that these two trees 
now stand at the head — the most rapid - grow- 
ing trees in the temperate zones of the globe. 

They are deciduous, losing their leaves like 
the elm and maple in the late autumn. 

In this, as in so many other lines of Mr. 
Burbank's investigations, a new field is now 
opened up for practical work. It now becomes 

56 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

possible to produce trees at will for practi- 
cally any purpose, — for ornamentation, for 
shade, for fuel, for manufacturing purposes ; 
to breed together trees from widely separated 
quarters of the globe, each having some de- 
sirable characteristic the other has not, uniting 
the best of both in the child of the two, and 
then selecting and selecting through a series 
of years until the desired end is reached. 
Hardiness, longevity, rapidity of growth, sym- 
metry of form, adaptability, — all play their 
part, all may be called upon to act at the 
proper moment. Mr. Burbank has given deep 
thought to this branch of breeding, realizing 
the vast importance to the world in any suc- 
cessful plan for maintaining and increasing its 
tree life. Upon this point he says: 

"The possibilities of improvement in trees 
are so fn'cat as to make it seem almost an ex- 
aggcration to state them. Trees may be bred 
together within certain specific limits, to pro- 
duce other trees of different character at will, 
combining the characters of the parents or 
developing wholly new ones. In human life 
pre-natal influences are marvelously powerful 
and extraordinarily diverse, and the spiritual 

57 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

pre-natal influences are immeasurably more 
powerful than the physical ones. So that 
while the future no doubt holds much for the 
good of the race in the matter of an improved 
human stock, these influences are at present, 
at least, far too diverse and powerful to be 
mastered or even taken clearly into account. 
A single and apparently very slight thing may 
influence a whole human life, indeed, may 
influence many lives directly and indirectly 
through generations. Not so with a tree. Its 
life is more fixed and stable. It has been fol- 
lowing the same influences and never depart- 
ing to any extent from a given course for 
centuries upon centuries. It does not yield 
easily. It is stubborn, persistent, it must be 
pressed upon harder and harder. 

" But when it yields, it yields unreservedly. 
Supply the right amount of pressure and the 
thing is done. Then, when its new life is fixed, 
it will persist in the new way as it has in the 
old. Take, for example, a tree which produces 
pitch, or maple -sugar, or tannin, or camphor, 
or quinine. Now if the ability of any one of 
these trees for producing its valuable product 
is fixed, but its capacity meager, this capacity 

58 



A f 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

may be increased at will simply by breeding 
for this one trait and by selecting with this 
end constantly in view. Thus, a tree or a 
whole forest, for the principle covers all, may 
be bred to produce a vastly increased supply 
of any one of these commodities, double and 
treble its former amount, thereby becoming 
immensely more valuable. So in trees whose 
bark may be valuable for coloring matter, the 
coloring matter may be increased at will, 
making the tree that much more important 
from a commercial point of view. Any de- 
sirable attribute of a tree may be increased at 
will. There is work enough to be done in this 
line for the government to put at work a 
thousand experts, and the possibilities ahead 
of them are so great that the whole face of 
nature might be changed by them by an in- 
telligent, patient and systematic following of 
breeding and selection. 

"Take the line of producing trees upon 
which to graft others in order to hurry these 
others onward to quicker fruitage. For exam- 
ple, we will say a certain prune has very desir- 
able qualities — it is high in sugar -content, 
large in size, admirable for curing and packing. 

59 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

But it has an inadequate root service, and 
when it comes to bearing on its own stock, it 
soon exhausts itself and becomes unable to 
support the top; it gradually produces less 
and less and of a steadily deteriorating quality. 
What is to be done ? Why, simply give it a 
new foundation upon which to build. The 
almond grows very rapidly, several times as 
fast as the prune. Graft the prune upon 
the almond when the almond has its root 
system established, say at five years of age, 
and let the almond do the hard work. See 
how the almond will send the prune bounding 
forward ! It gives the prune its needed basic 
supply of food, and so the prune has nothing 
to do but to go onward, bearing abundantly. 
" There are certain trees that are hustlers, — 
strong, vigorous, fast-growing, self-reliant, 
powerful to resist untoward circumstances. 
These must be made to help their weaker 
brethren, to give them better commercial 
qualities. Take it in the line of a walnut bred 
for fuel, to say nothing of lumber for manufac- 
ture. Suppose a man buys a walnut tree large 
enough to set out and pays fifty cents for it, and 
in ten years it will produce ten cords of wood 

60 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

worth five dollars a cord — isn't the money 
well invested ? Isn't it better to pay fifty 
cents for such a tree and get such results than 
to get another tree for nothing which in ten 
years will produce one cord ? Suppose a man 
has a fine rich walnut or other nut which will 
produce ten times as many nuts when grafted 
upon a faster growing tree as it will pro- 
duce upon its own roots — doesn't it pay to 
graft it? 

"In considering the development of new 
kinds of trees and in improving old ones, it 
must always be borne in mind that no two 
trees are alike. Two trees may start out, for 
example, upon apparently precisely the same 
conditions, but one will grow a foot while the 
other is growing an inch. Oftentimes among 
a lot of seedlings one will grow from a hundred 
to five hundred times as much in a season as 
its comrade raised from precisely the same kind 
of seed. This fast-growing one is the one to 
choose, and by selection it may be developed 
still more until, as in the case of the walnut I 
have bred, it stands at the head of all trees in 
the temperate zones for rapidity of growth. 
Both this fast-growing seedhng and its slower 

61 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

comrade had the same chance, but one of 
them was a hustler and the other was not. 

"The fact is too often lost sight of, or not 
known at all, that the tops of the trees abso- 
lutely govern the roots. The leaves are the 
lungs and the stomach of the tree. The food 
is digested, so to speak, in the leaves and 
there made accessible for the tree as a whole. 
If a tree be fine of foliage it will be powerful 
in all its parts, because it has the capacity to 
take so much nourishment from the air, — 
four -fifths of it being nitrogen, which is the 
chief source of supply for plant -food. The 
sun, too, plays its important part, — condensed 
sunshine and condensed air are the chief 
articles of the tree's diet. 

"Each tree, too, has its own individual 
characteristics and traits, as well as being 
absolutely unlike all other trees in form and 
structure, and these traits must be studied and 
taken carefully into consideration. Take the 
one act of fruit -bearing. I find that in certain 
instances I have bred trees to bear too much 
fruit, the matter was overdone. It came about 
by constantly selecting from seedling trees 
which were heavy fruit-bearers, all the time 

62! 




One of the hybrid chestnuts, bearing nuts at eighteen niontlis 
of age from the seed 



1 



1 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

seeking to make even these increase. The 
result has been in some cases that I have had 
to go backward again to a point where the 
tree could produce its maximum of fruit 
without imperiling its eflficiency. 

"Bear in mind that, in the production of 
any new tree, selection plays the all-important 
part. First, one must get clearly in mind the 
kind of tree he wants, then breed and select to 
that end, always choosing through a series of 
years the trees which are approaching nearest 
the ideal, and rejecting all others. 

"There is another important feature of a 
tree to be used for manufacture, — its grain. 
It is perfectly feasible to breed a tree up to a 
certain general style of grain, by constantly 
selecting for this special characteristic. As no 
two trees are absolutely alike on their exte- 
riors, so it is with the interior of the tree. 
Cut open a series of cross-bred seedlings — 
some are dark, some are light, some are close- 
grained, some are coarse, some show tenden- 
cies toward beautiful markings, some are plain, 
some have wavy grain, some have straight. 
So pick out from them the grain you want, 
and continue selecting and breeding with 

6a 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

this stock as a basis; finally you have the 
perfected tree just as you wish it. Once pro- 
duced, it is, save in minor essentials, unchang- 
ing. You can change the grain of the tree, 
or its bark, or its top, or its trunk, or its 
leaves, or its roots, or its quantity of quinine, 
or sugar, or pitch, or what not; — you can 
hardly think of anything you cannot do with 
it. You can make it grow tall or short, huge 
of girth or slender, narrow of branch or broad, 
you can change the number of leaves it will 
bear upon a branch and their shape. You can 
chemically transform it, too. Of course, the 
habits of the tree must first be firmly enough 
fixed through sufficient generations so that it 
will not revert — then it will go onward in its 
new course ; or, by grafting, at once. 

"There are certain things which do not 
seem possible, certain crosses of trees of widely 
separated species that seem out of the ques- 
tion. Still, while these crosses may never 
become what might be termed commercially 
effective, not practical, in other words, yet 
they may be what may be called scientifically 
successful. In other words, the actual act of 
crossing may be accomplished where it has 

64 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

apparently been impossible. But this much 
may be done even in these remote cases: 

"Two given species will not readily yield 
to union. Make a cross between them, take 
the seeds of the progeny and plant them. 
Cross two other diverse species in the same 
way and plant the seeds of their progeny. 
Then to the progeny of the first union unite 
the progeny of the second, and from this later 
union you may sometimes get marvelously 
satisfactory results. The outcome of either 
main cross would be unsatisfactory, perhaps 
unimportant; the union of their progeny may 
obviate the difficulty. The possibilities of 
such crossing and its subsequent selection are 
inconceivably great. 

"It is my opinion that one of the most 
important, in some ways the most important 
of all the many fields open now to the plant- 
breeder, is this one of the production of new 
and the improving of old trees. I believe it 
to be of immense significance commercially." 

Closely allied to this production of a tree is 
the improvement of the product of the tree, 
its nuts. Deciding that it would be well to 
have an English walnut with a thinner shell, 

65 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

Mr. Burbank began a series of tests looking 
to that end by constantly selecting seedling 
trees whose nuts bore toward the point aimed 
at. They responded heartily to the demands 
made upon them, so readily, indeed, that one 
day the nuts were found so thin of shell the 
birds could pick through them. This required 
an absolutely opposite breeding, so the trees 
were bred backward again along the path they 
had come until just the required thickness oj- 
shell was reached. So it was also with 
almonds, the shell being bred to suit, while 
similar results may be reached with other nuts. 
At the same time, general excellence and 
the question of productivity were under con- 
sideration constantly, with the result that a 
finer, larger and more prolific nut was pro- 
duced. In line with what JNIr. Burbank has 
done with grafting a physically insignificant 
tree upon a stronger one, a California nut- 
grower grafted Mr. Burbank's new soft-shelled 
English walnut upon a native black walnut 
of rapid growth. The average annual produc- 
tion of nuts per tree in the region had been 
from seventy to one hundred pounds. The 
black waliiut tree, when grafted with this new 

66 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

English walnut, produced on an average four 
hundred and fifty pounds of nuts per season, 
in some cases as high as five hundred and 
fifty-two pounds. 

In the skin or outer layer of the meat of 
the walnut is more or less tannin, a substance 
which, when present in considerable quanti- 
ties, relatively, gives the skin a dark appear- 
ance and makes the meat more or less bitter 
and disagreeable to the taste. In some wild 
nuts when it appears in larger quantities, it 
becomes positively dangerous. While the out- 
side of the walnut is commercially changed 
by bleaching, the inside is not reached and 
the tannin has remained. JMr. Burbank thought 
that if Nature had allowed this undesirable 
substance to enter into the walnut, she could 
be induced to give it up, so he set about 
breeding the tannin out, succeeding at last in 
driving it entirely away, leaving the meat a 
pure creamy white. At the same time, he 
developed the size of the nut also, making it 
from a quarter to a third larger than its 
parents. 

Turning his attention to the chestnut, he 
decided to relieve it of some of its bur, and 

67 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

so by years of selection and breeding, the basis 
of all this work, he changed the thickness 
and the substance of the bur at will, finally 
demonstrating that, if necessary, the outer 
portion of the bur might be wholly done 
away with, leaving a smooth surface. To breed 
it too thin, however, would be undesirable, the 
bur being the nut's protection against birds. 

The life character of the chestnut was also 
changed in marked degree. He set about 
producing a chestnut that would bear nuts 
early in hfe. Ordinarily it would be all the 
way from ten to twenty-jfive years before a 
chestnut tree raised from seed would begin to 
bear. Mr. Burbank decided that was alto- 
gether too slow for modern days, so he has 
made the chestnut bear nuts at the age of a 
year and a half; indeed, nuts have come upon 
trees not over seven months old. 

In this way the commercial possibilities are 
suggested — where Nature does not move fast 
enough, she must be helped to more rapid 
progress. 

From the standpoint of the adornment of 
the world, including with this that splendid 
sentiment which is becoming more and more 

68 



THE CREATION OF NEW TREES 

manifest, looking toward the preservation of 
forests and the rapid re-foresting of denuded 
areas, as well as from the purely economic 
point of view, looking to the creation of new 
types of trees better than the old and bringing 
the old up to a higher standard of efficiency, 
Mr. Burbank's work in tree -breeding is of 
commanding importance. In itself it fs quite 
sufficient to have made the reputation of any 
plant-breeder in the world. 



69 



CHAPTER IV 

THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY 

A MONG the thousands of letters which 
-^^^ Mr. Burbank receives from all quarters 
of the globe are very many having unusual 
interest because of the prominence of the 
writers and because of their interest in the 
remarkable work of which they make inquiry, 
but he has seldom received one of such pecu- 
liar interest as that which came from a pro- 
fessor of a far eastern college. It told of the 
loss of a little son. In the depths of his great 
bereavement the father had sought for some 
memorial which should be a visible token of 
the rare life that had gone. So he chose one 
of the exquisitely beautiful amaryllis plants 
which Mr. Burbank had created, to plant upon 
the child's grave. The letter told of the splen- 
did blossoms that came and of the deep sat- 
isfaction that such a monument had been 
chosen. The flower was of rare color and 
great size; it would be a lasting memorial. 

70 



THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY 

He must be blind to all sense of color who 
is not deeply impressed by the brilliancy of 
these magnificent blossoms when seen in great 
masses. Through years of the most patient 
and painstaking labor Mr. Burbank has devel- 
oped the amaryllis from a flower having a few 
inches of breadth until it is very nearly a foot 
in diameter and with every shade of crimson 
or pink or scarlet and many rare and unusual 
blendings, all the colors being greatly intensi- 
fied. The usual methods of breeding and 
selecting were followed. It was found that 
the huge flowers were far too heavy for the 
ordinary amarylhs stem, so the complete trans- 
formation of the plant itself was planned. 
The stem was changed to meet the demands 
of the heavy flower, a low stout plant result- 
ing, not more than eighteen inches high, with 
thick leaves and sturdy trunk. When a bed 
of these new amaryllis is in blossom it pre- 
sents a spectacle of rare beauty, the great 
gorgeous blossoms illuminating the whole 
surroundings as with crimson flames. 

Under ground even more wonderful changes 
have taken place. If you take two amaryllis 
bulbs, one of the old type, one of the new, 

71 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

and place them side by side, you will see an 
even greater contrast than that which ap- 
pears in the blossoms. The ordinary bulb 
will be two to three inches in diameter at the 
largest part and will weigh a pound or a little 
over. The new bulb is fully eight inches in 
diameter, twelve to fifteen inches in height 
and weighs from six to eight pounds. It is 
graceful in shape, having the form of a beauti- 
ful vase. In color it is like brownish copper 
with inner folds of silver. 

But the most remarkable feature of the 
bulbs is their wonderful power of multiplica- 
tion. In place of four or five bulbs, as in the 
old plant, the new amaryllis produces all the 
way from forty to fifty. When they were first 
introduced the bulbs sold at six dollars each, 
but by this rapid multiplication they will soon 
be produced so that they may be sold for a 
few cents each — then the poorest man may 
glorify his garden by these magnificent blos- 
soms, and no one will be happier thereby than 
the generous-hearted man who has made them 
possible. 

When Dr. Hugo de Vries, the great Dutch 
botanist, visited Mr. Burbank in the summer 

72 



THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY 

of 1904., called to America mainly by his in- 
tense desire to see Mr. Burbank and to learn 
in person something of his work, he was 
deeply interested in the amaryllis experiments. 
He wrote an exhaustive article for a Dutch 
magazine comprising many thousands of words 
descriptive of his visit to IVIr. Burbank, — fur- 
ther mention of which is elsewhere made, — 
and the following appears in regard to the 
amaryllis : 

"Another example (of hybrids) is the ama- 
ryllis, which with us is a hothouse plant, but 
which, in California's beautiful climate, may 
be raised in the open. Thus it is made possible 
to bring to flowering tens of thousands of 
seedlings, while in Europe we can select only 
from a few hundreds. In such a ratio as this, 
the number of years necessary to bring about 
as great improvements is much less. It re- 
quired more than half a century to get the 
amaryllis with their large flowers neatly closed 
in with their numberless shades and stripes 
which we admire so much. Burbank, of 
course, is able to hasten the process. 

"Y'ears ago, when the improvement of fruit 
trees almost exclusively drew his attention, he 

IS 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

raised and crossed the amaryllis, but only for 
curiosity's sake and on a small scale. But soon 
the results promised that more labor and ex- 
pense bestowed upon them would in the end 
be well rewarded. Then he commenced the 
development more systematically and turned 
his attention to the propagation of very de- 
cided properties, — larger flowers, but, espe- 
cially, more flowers on the same stem, and next 
to that, all those characteristics which would 
give more rapid development and a larger re- 
productive power. Some bulbs which, when 
starting the experiment, produced only five or 
six bulbs, were forced by crossing with more 
fertile species and a careful selection to double 
the number of bulbs, while at the same time, 
the bulbs were increased in size and threw out 
stronger stems and fuller flowers. 

" But what was the most remarkable was 
the shortening of the duration of life, from 
seed to seed, as it is called. I mean the num- 
ber of years which a seedling requires before 
it blossoms and produces seed. It is clear how 
much this includes. If after every crossing 
there elapse four or five years before the result 
may be judged by the one flower, all that time 

74 



11 



THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY 

must be given to its care and cultivation, but 
by the use of the first flowering seedhngs in 
crossing, the duration of hfe from seed to seed 
is cut in two, so that after two or three years 
new crossings will be ready for him to pass 
judgment upon them. Almost all of the long 
California summer we may now have the 
amaryllis in flower. The flowers reach a diam- 
eter of twenty to twenty -five centimeters in 
different varieties, with flower leaves over- 
lapping one another with their broad edges. 
The colors and figures compare with the best 
European kinds, while a strong- built plant, an 
easy handling and rapid multiplication make 
it a very desirable garden plant. It is the aim 
to make it one of the most common plants 
which will find its place in parks and at sum- 
mer resorts, in city gardens and around the 
farmer's dwelling. 

" Endeavors to cross the amaryllis with the 
related Crinums are started, and from what I 
saw of them, the first trials were crowned with 
success. The Crinuvi Af)ie?icanum is a wild 
plant from the Florida swamps which proved 
its fitness for crossing. At the same time a 
number of other species were raised for the 

75 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

same purpose (of crossing). These were more 
tender and came from more tropical regions. 
Some, Burbank was even obliged to keep in 
his hothouse, but, when crossed with the 
garden amaryllis, they gave hybrids which felt 
at home in the California climate." 

De Vries, in concluding this part of his 
comment, again referred to the means which 
Mr. Burbank has made use of to shorten the 
duration of life from seed to seed, noting that 
"many a tree or shrub with us (in Europe) 
only commences blossoming when it is ten or 
fifteen years old," a great obstacle especially 
when repeated crossings are necessary. He 
then calls attention to the means which Mr. 
Burbank has utilized, threefold in character: 

"The selection of California, with its beauti- 
ful climate ; the selection of the first flowering 
seedlings, and his method of grafting." 

He then describes Mr. Burbank's method of 
hurrying hybrids forward with great rapidity 
by grafting upon a vast scale, as elsewhere 
described. 

Down through long rows of green beds 
where plants of many kinds are under test, 
showing in the gradations from the small, 

76 



THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY 

weak ones up to the strong and large growths 
the endless marvel of selection, the eye wan- 
ders, meeting a novelty at every foot until, 
at last, it rests upon a plot of ground perhaps 
fifty feet square wherein are growing two 
thousand of the most marvelous plants that 
ever were seen since the world began. This 
plot or bed of ground contains the new hybrid 
poppies upon which JVIr. Burbank has been 
working for many years. The chief crosses 
have been between the oriental poppy, Pa- 
pavc?' orientale, a perennial, and the opium 
poppy, PajKwcr somnijhmm, a short-lived 
annual. Out of these crosses came the bed of 
poppies, no two of the whole two thousand 
alike. In the foliage especially, and also in the 
blossoms to a lesser extent, nearly every order 
of plants known appears. The leaves are a 
source of intense interest as a study for a 
botanist or plant -breeder, presenting remark- 
able combinations of old forms with pro- 
duction of entirely new ones. 

The object of making this great crossing 
was far more than reached — the results were 
richer than could have been expected. Sci- 
entifically interesting in a marked degree as 

77 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

it was, — some of the plants bearing great 
quantities of seeds but no flowers, some bear- 
ing beautiful flowers in great profusion but 
not a single seed, some bearing seeds and 
flowers arranged in the most fantastic shapes 
with flowers surrounding the seed-capsules and 
vice versa, and some curious ones bearinsf 
neither seeds nor flowers, — yet the experi- 
ment proved still more interesting to the 
layman from the point of view of the adorn- 
ment of the world. For among all the won- 
derful improvements in floral life which Mr. 
Burbank has effected, it is doubtful if any 
one of them has shown what might be termed 
such spectacular beauty. His creations are 
each so individually characteristic and beauti- 
ful that they are not easily to be compared, 
but the poppy results certainly may be desig- 
nated as among the most magnificent. 

But look a little later upon this bed of 
poppies, and even the strangeness of the new 
life in seed -capsule and leaf is overshadowed 
in interest by the splendid blossoms them- 
selves. They are now a mass of crimson and 
black and white, with many intermediate 
blendings. So huge the blossoms, so wide 

78 



THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY 

the mass of color, it is as though some great 
painter of the world itself had stopped on his 
way over this fair valley, forgetful of the rest 
of the earth, and here had fairly exhausted 
his brush. The blossoms are from eight to 
ten inches in diameter. Place seven of them 
side by side in a vertical row, they are as tall 
as a tall man, — eight of them measure the 
height of a giant. A man could hide behind 
a dozen. Individually, the flowers have all 
the beauty of their ancestors, only enhanced. 
Effective in interior house adornment, taken 
in the mass out-of-doors, they present magnifi- 
cent decorative possibilities. All this is made 
still more significant because of the fact that 
most of the new species are perpetual bloom- 
ers, lasting throughout the entire season 
instead of two or three weeks at the outside, 
as is the case of other poppies. They are 
perennials, also. 

With this new poppy a commanding figure 
enters upon floral life. 

Something of the remarkable character of 
the work which Mr. Burbank does is seen in 
his ability to take a single one of these new 
poppy seed -capsules, divide it into four sec- 

79 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

lions and, by pollinating each section, produce 
from one section an annual plant, from an- 
other a perennial, from the third quarter 
crimson poppies, from the fourth, white ones. 
In another experiment Mr. Burbank has 
produced a blue poppy, a blossom unknown 
to the world before. 

Strangely interesting, also, is a new poppy 
now under process of development, which 
promises to become a notable addition to this 
varied family. It is the result of the union 
of the Papaver pilosum, and the Papaver 
somniferuni of the variety known as the 
"Bride" poppy. The first named is a delicate 
flower, the general color being a dull orange, 
with white center. The second is pure white, 
the seed -capsule in the center a shade of 
green. The first one has smooth-edged petals, 
the white one heavily laciniated ones. The 
child of the two is a fire -red or scarlet with 
purple at the base of the petals, a most strik- 
ing flower. It has rejected the smooth edges 
of one parent and adopted the irregular lacin- 
iations, or fringe, of the white parent. The 
divisions of the fringe of the new poppy are 
wider than those of the parent, though the 

80 




The central poppy, a brilliant scarlet with purple center, is the oflFspring 
of the other two. The one to the left, Paporer pilosutn, a delicate orange; 
the one to the right, Paparer somniferiun. the "Bride poppy," a pure 
white. Leaves of each are shown. 



THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY 

incisions are not so deep. Its foliage is wholly 
different from that of either parent. The 
Pilosum is of solid color throughout its petals, 
as is the other parent, the offspring presenting 
a combination of purple and scarlet as noted. 
As one studies more into this line of his 
experimentation, the wonder grows steadily,— 
the possibilities of what he may yet accom- 
plish in this one branch seem limitless; for, 
aside from the production of the strange forms 
which appear in the foliage of the new pop- 
pies, and the development of the great poppy 
itself which stands apart among flowers, he 
has done what might well be called the 
impossible: he has changed the native Cali- 
fornia poppy from gold to crimson. JVlany 
acts has this man done which savor of the 
miraculous, none more marvelous than this. 
Once, when he was looking over a field of 
these gorgeous flowers that cover the Cali- 
fornia hills and roadsides in the early summer 
as with a splendid mantle of gold, he discov- 
ered one blossom which bore a faint trace of 
crimson, a slender line along down its yellow 
satin chalice. It was a strange stain of Nature. 
She had done her work well to place this odd 

81 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

note of color where it would fall under the 
eye of the man who has scrutinized her as 
others have never done. Instantly he isolated 
the plant, transplanted it, watched it with 
jealous care. Its seeds were saved and planted. 
Some of the flowers which came upon the 
plants from these seeds showed a similar line 
of red slightly widened. Again the crop of 
seeds from these new plants, now much more 
numerous, was planted, and a far larger har- 
vest of blossoms was produced. Some of them 
were true to their ancestral forms of life and 
nodded their pure yellow heads in saucy 
defiance. They paid sadly for their temerity, 
for all of them were rejected. Others had 
still more pronounced hints of the crimson, 
and these were selected for further plant- 
ing. So on and on the test went for years, 
each successive generation showing stronger 
tendencies toward the end desired, as the 
petals grew more and more crimson. At last 
the end was reached, the yellow poppy haa 
become a deep lustrous red; it was hard by 
the land of miracles. 

From certain quarters, — so curious the 
inconsistency of man, — came up more or less 

82 



THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY 

violent protests against this act, — the golden 
poppy, was it not the adopted flower of the 
state of gold? And here was this worker of 
miracles changing it to crimson and robbing 
the state of its most distinctive and character- 
istic adornment! But ]Mr. Burbank met the 
protest with a gentle smile, and the poppies 
go on their gorgeous way embossing the Cali- 
fornia hillsides, gold upon green in high relief, 
like the ornaments of some mighty shield, 
while the crimson poppy which has been so 
gently stolen from their midst is returned to 
the world again for the adornment of the 
gardens of many lands. 

Many other striking varieties are developing 
in the midst of all the crossings thus secured, 
exhibiting all manner of combinations of crim- 
son and gold. 

But INIr. Burbank does not attempt the 
enlargement of a flower just for the sake of 
making it bigger than some other flower, or 
even that it may be called bigger than any of 
its ancestors. Bigness, as such, has no cham- 
pion in him. He makes a flower larger than 
its ancestors when that flower has certain 
characteristics which make increased size 

83 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

desirable. A lesser man might, with the same 
power in his hands, breed flowers merely to be 
huge without regard to the flower's plan in 
nature or the fitness of things. Not so with 
Mr. Burbank. He has as great a delight in 
intensifying the color or deepening the fra- 
grance of a violet as he has in making some 
flower with distinct decorative possibilities 
more noble of bloom. He might, through years 
of selection, produce, no doubt, a violet much 
larger in size then any now known, but he 
would as soon think of preserving some ugly 
monstrosity of plant life as of thus disturbing 
the life habit of one of the inost exquisite of 
flowers. Deeper tones to the violet, yes; greater 
luxuriance of growth, wider zones of cultiva- 
tion, greater hardiness, intenser even if subtler 
perfume, yes; but abnormality, never. 

The whole scheme of his treatment of 
floral life embraces harmony and symmetry. 
He would round it out when it is angular, 
make it more graceful when it is awkward, 
deepen and vary its fragrancies without 
making them oppressive. No man who has 
ever lived has laid out such a scheme for the 
adornment of the world, indeed it may fairly 

84 



THE AMARYLLIS AND THE POPPY 

be stated that no hundred phint-breeders who 
have preceded him have ever done so much to 
ennoble floral life. And the future holds pos- 
sibilities to be still more clearly indicated 
when his new creations, many of which are but 
just coming into general use, shall be uni- 
versal. Y^ears have been necessary in his tests 
to bring the flowers up to their high estate, 
and years more will elapse before all the tests 
under way will be completed, but enough has 
already been done to alter the whole floral life 
of the world. Those who were fortunate 
enough to see the magnificent display of 
cannas at the Pan-American Exposition in the 
city of Buffalo, — ^the "Tarrytown" canna, one 
of ISlr. Burbank's creations, — ^ could form 
some idea of the grander possibilities of his 
new flowers; and at the exposition in St. 
Louis the first prize for bedding roses, a rose 
which has limitless possibilities for exterior 
decoration, was a rose created by Mr. Bur- 
bank. But the more magnificent creations are 
not more wonderful, or more important, than 
tliose which have their culmination in his 
glorification of the tiniest blossoms, be they 
those shy wild ones which open their eyes in 

85 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

the depths of the cool dark forest, or those 
more daring ones that witchingly display their 
dainty brilliancy in the gardens of the town. 
It is his close and intimate touch with 
nature, united with his keen sense of the 
fitness of things ever manifest in all he 
does, that enables him to deal with these 
flowers quite as a painter with his landscape. 
He makes them not only in a certain beau- 
tiful sense interpret his own thoughts, giving 
to the world in the completed whole that which 
he has long been planning in his own brain, 
but he fits them unerringly into their natural 
place. It is, if you will, the blending of the 
artisan and the artist. 



86 



CHAPTER V 

THE POTATO AND THE POMATO 

TTklRECTLY in line with many of what 
-■-^ may be called the commercial achieve- 
ments of Mr. Burbank, — though these are no 
less wonderful than those which have had a 
more cesthetic bearing, — is his work in the 
production of the potato. It was this vegeta- 
ble, as has elsewhere been noted, which 
originally brought JMr. Burbank's name into 
prominence, and all through the years that 
have intervened since its creation it has had 
a large influence not only upon the wealth of 
the nations but upon the dietary of the people 
of many countries. Recent reports from Ire- 
land show that the Burbank potato bids fair 
to redeem that long- distressed island from 
famine, because of its ability to withstand the 
diseases which have destroyed other varieties. 
For many years Mr. Burbank has been at 
work upon new varieties of potatoes. Even 
though the one that bears his name has 

87 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

proven so successful, he has not Hesitated to 
set about producing improved ones, the possi- 
bihties of the potato for doing better and still 
better service to the world being unusually 
pronounced. With this end in view, he has 
gathered varieties, both wild and tame, from 
many different countries, making from them 
a bewildering number of crosses and combina- 
tions. Some of them are curious in character, 
as, for example, the snake potato, a crescent- 
shaped type from South America about three 
inches long and a httle over half an inch thick 
in its largest part. The wild potato from Ari- 
zona has a most peculiar form. One would 
never believe it to be a potato. In shape and 
general appearance it is a large-sized raisin. 
Some of the potatoes of this variety are dark 
reddish brown, some lighter, but most of them 
have the distinctive shrunken look and shape 
of the raisin. 

Such wild potatoes as this form valuable 
adjuncts to the work. Very often a wild strain 
of blood supplies Mr. Burbankjust the needed 
element to make a weak race powerful. It 
was Emerson, whom Mr. Burbank most de- 
lights to quote, who said one day on this point: 

88 




Wild Arizona potatoes vised in breeding to jrive strength and 
hardiness to the conunon potato 



THE POTATO AND THE POMATO 

"The city is recruited from the country. In 
the year 1 805, it is said, every legitimate mon- 
arch in Europe was imbecile. The city would 
have died out, rotted and exploded, long ago 
but that it was reinforced from the fields. It 
is only country that came to town day before 
yesterday, that is city and court today." 

Some of the potatoes which are hurried for- 
ward in the greenhouse are very interesting 
because of their size. Perhaps a hundred of 
them, so small are they, may be held in a 
child's hand, and all of them perfect potatoes 
and all differing in color, size and shape. One 
new potato which has proven most toothsome 
is beautifully colored throughout all its flesh. 
The color is a magenta approaching crimson, 
so distributed that, when the potato is cut 
open, no matter from what angle, it presents 
most interesting figures, some conventional, 
some severely geometric, some having a start- 
ling likeness to human and animal faces. 

Mr. Burbank says that an erroneous opinion 
prevails that the potato has a tendency to die 
out, or run out, as the phrase is, in various 
countries. He says this apparent running out 
of a given variety is generally due to the intro- 

89 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

duction of better varieties which slowly but 
surely supplant the old ones. He makes note 
of the fact, too, that the seed -ball of the 
potato is less and less often found now upon 
the common varieties, due to the fact that the 
tuber of the potato itself is used in planting 
exclusively. The continued disuse of any 
organ in a plant, as in an animal, tends to its 
weakening and final extinction. He notes 
among plants which have gradually passed 
through the same experience the sugar-cane, 
banana, horse-radish, sweet potato and others. 
Thousands of new potatoes are being bred 
by Mr. Burbank in the midst of his new tests 
in the search for better stock. Very much of 
this is begun in the hothouse, in order to save 
time. Selection here goes on upon an elaborate 
scale, but, important as it always is in this 
production of plants specifically valuable com- 
mercially as well as those for adornment alone, 
selection is not less important, in a commer- 
cial production, than a knowledge of the needs 
of the various parts of the world to which the 
new production is to go. Here lie some of the 
most important problems in aU Mr. Burbank 's 
work, the solution calling for the widest pos- 

90 



THE POTATO AND THE POMATO 

sible knowledge. He studies a thousand and 
one phases of the subject whenever he projects 
a new creation. He must know the conditions 
under which old varieties have been produced 
and their life history; he must know the 
character of the soil, the length of season, the 
climatic conditions, the markets, and their de- 
mands. He never produces a new fruit or 
vegetable without taking clearly into account 
all these practical bearings. This adds enor- 
mously to the sum of all his labor, but it is 
precisely this which has made his creations so 
successful — he knows not only how to create 
but how to fit and adapt. This suggests some- 
thing of the tremendous demands made upon 
]VIr. Burbank in the prosecution of a work of 
such great magnitude and of so diverse a 
character. 

So these new potatoes are being bred to suit 
all sorts of climate and soils. 

But there is another and vitally important 
phase of the work, the changing of the potato 
itself — making it over into a far richer vege- 
table than it has ever been before. Just as 
corn may. be bred, and is being bred, to pro- 
duce a required per cent of a given element, so 

91 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

a potato may be bred to increase or decrease 
its chief characters. The average potato is 
composed of about seventy -five per cent 
water and twenty -five per cent dry matter. 
This latter is, broadly speaking, composed of 
starch, protein and fat; though these two 
latter elements are present in but small quan- 
tities, the main body of the dry matter being 
the starch. In the growing potato vine there 
is a very large proportion of starch, larger than 
either rice or corn, approximately eighty per 
cent. 

Before considering the immediate plans of 
Mr. Burbank in the improvement of the po- 
tato as a table food, it will be of interest to 
show something of the practical bearing of 
his work upon the manufacturing possibilities 
of the potato in the line of starch. The 
seventy-five per cent of the potato which con- 
sists of water may, from the manufacturing 
point of view, be considered as largely waste, 
or, if not waste, at least of no commercial 
value. Very much of this waste may be re- 
stored, negatively speaking, by driving out the 
water and putting starch in its place. Mr. 
Burbank's investigations have shown that it is 

92 



THE POTATO AND THE POMATO 

as easy to breed potatoes for a larger amount 
of starch as it is to breed for any other charac- 
teristic — flavor, resistance to disease, with- 
standing drought, adaptability to a given 
climate, early or late maturing, and so on. 

If in his experiments he develops a potato 
which has twenty-five per cent more starch 
than the normal potato, — though even a 
larger amount is possible, — -the result is of 
marked importance from the point of view of 
the manufacturer. The value of the average 
annual production of potatoes in the United 
States is now, approximately, one hundred 
millions of dollars. In round numbers the 
United States produces each year about ten 
million dollars' worth of starch. The chief 
sources of supply for this starch are Indian 
corn and potatoes. Of the four main uses 
to which starch is put, — for the laundry, 
for the manufacture of glucose, for edible 
purposes, and for use in the textile arts,— corn, 
in the United States, supplies the main 
portion of the first two. In Europe tlie potato 
is practically the main source of starch supply. 
Potato starch is of much importance to the 
manufacturer of cottons, woolens, silks and 

93 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

linens, as sizing for the warp before it is 
woven ; for finishing the goods after they have 
been woven, bleached and dyed, and, in the 
form of dextrine, as a thickener or vehicle 
for applying the colors to a fabric. The dex- 
trine, or British gum, is used a great deal also 
in the manufacturing of mucilages. 

But the potatoes in use for starch manufac- 
ture in the United States are very often poor in 
quality, made up of culls, immature tubers, or 
those injured in digging and sold as waste. 
The starch is quite likely also to be low in 
grade and lacking in uniformity, greatly vary- 
ing from day to day. Still, notwithstanding 
this, for use in textile arts, the potato starch 
commands nearly double the price of corn 
starch. 

Attempts have been made to increase the 
supply of starch by the use of fertilizers, but 
Mr. Burbank's plan is better than this, for it 
begins with the source of the supply itself and 
works directly upon the starch in the plant, as 
is the case in the breeding of corn for a larger 
starch -content. The potatoes which show a 
somewhat larger amount of starch are selected 
for further testing, and here again the supreme 

94 



THE POTATO AND THE POMATO 

importance of selection is shown, each suc- 
ceeding generation having an increase of the 
desired characteristic over the former. 

Nearly twelve millions of dollars are in- 
vested in the United States alone in the 
manufacture of starch. With twenty-five per 
cent of starch - content added to a given thou- 
sand pounds of potatoes, there being no 
attendant increase in the cost of manufacture, 
the economic importance of breeding for 
starch becomes apparent. In Europe the 
matter has received much attention, and efforts 
have been made to increase the amount of 
starch. Along with the increase in starch 
supply which Mr. Burbank makes available 
for the whole world simply by an intelligent 
following of the lines he has laid down, comes 
increase in productivity, for he is able to 
unite these two characteristics in the same 
plant. 

In the production of alcohol for manufactur- 
ing purposes the potato is coming more and 
more into favor. The starch is converted into 
maltose by the diastase of malt, the maltose 
being easily acted upon by ferment for the 
actual production of the alcohol. An increase 

95 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

in the starch -content of the potato for this 
manufacture is particularly desirable. 

But important as this breeding of potatoes 
is from a manufacturing point of view, it is 
still more important as a means of food sup- 
ply. The great value of the potato as a food 
lies in its being a concentrated food, supplying 
both heat and energy, though needing the 
foods rich in protein to make up a model bal- 
anced ration. Mr. Burbank is now making over 
the potato. He long ago saw its possibilities, 
and only the tremendous demands of other ex- 
periments upon him have prevented the com- 
pletion of the work. He will leave the potato, 
when he is done with it, a far more impor- 
tant feature of the world's supply of food than 
it has ever been before. Already enough has 
been accomplished in the preHminary test, to 
foreshadow the end. He has had four main 
objects in view in the work: A potato with 
a better flavor, one with a relatively larger 
amount of sugar, one that will be of a larger 
size and all of the same uniform shape and 
size, and one that will better resist disease 
and be a larger yielder than any potato now 
known, 

96 




Potatoes gTOwinj; ui)on a tomato vine after yrat'tinii' upon 
the potato root 



THE POTATO AND THE POMATO 

While he is working with all these factors 
in view, and gradually bringing the potatoes 
under test up to the standard he has set for 
each, he is perhaps more deeply interested in 
the production of a better flavored potato than 
in almost any of the other features, important 
though they are. He holds that it is highly 
important in the production of a new fruit or 
vegetable to make it preeminently palatable, 
for, in the last analysis, it is palatability that 
decides the permanence of any new food. If 
palatability be eliminated as a factor, then 
mankind is prone to consider the food, — no 
matter what its form or character, — a medi- 
cine, to be taken because it produces certain 
necessary results. He has long been working, 
and with satisfactory results, to breed more 
sugar into the potato as one element of pala- 
tability so that when cooked it will present a 
far more satisfactory flavor. Several of the 
new varieties now under test have already 
shown a delightful advance in this respect over 
older varieties. The question of size is also 
important, and INIr. Burbank is giving to the 
potatoes uniformity so that they will be more 
satisfactory for shipping. The old-fashioned 

97 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

potatoes varied much in a given hill, rendering 
them unsatisfactory for marketing without 
selection. Mr. Burbank will obviate this by 
making them all practically of the same size. 
Uniformity will also be more satisfactory for 
cooking purposes. 

While the potato and the tomato are very 
closely allied in family ties, being, indeed, not 
far separated blood relation, they are as far 
apart as the poles when it comes to any satis- 
factory amalgamation. Mr. Burbank has found 
many similarly strange instances where two 
plants which, by all the probabilities, should 
be the very ones to be most hospitable to each 
other, utterly refuse to join. 

But some very remarkable results developed 
in his attempts to cross the two. For ex- 
ample, he has produced tomatoes from the 
seeds of plants pollinated from potato pollen 
only. He has produced what he has aptly 
called "aerial potatoes," most peculiar in form, 
growing on a Burbank potato vine grafted on 
a Ponderosa tomato plant. These open-air 
potatoes are of many different shapes and sizes, 
as well as colors. Some of them assume gro- 
tesque forms and appear quite like little pigs. 

98 



THE POTATO AND THE POMATO 

Reversing this act, he grafted the same kind of 
tomato plant upon the same kind of potato 
phmt and produced, underground, a strange- 
looking potato with marked tomato character- 
istics. Two distinct species of tomatoes were 
crossed, producing an exceedingly interesting 
ornamental plant about twelve inches high by- 
fifteen inches across. It has remarkably at- 
tractive and unusual leaves and compact clus- 
ters of uniform globular fruit, the whole 
presenting a unique appearance. In this 
connection Mr. Burbank suggests the possi- 
bilities for the development of the tomato on 
the part of amateur and commercial plant 
breeders — opportunities for the developing of 
tomatoes with greater nutrition, more pal- 
atable, and with better keeping and canning 
qualities being pronounced. He looks upon 
the tomato as a desirable vegetable as it 
stands, but as one which by no manner of 
means has been brought up to its proper 
plane. 

But important as is the work of Mr. Bur- 
bank in potato culture, both in the production 
of the world-famous potato which bears his 
name and in the large tests now under way in 

99 




NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

the transformation of this vegetable, it appears 
probable that it will be rivaled, even if it is 
not surpassed, by the new fruit which grows 
upon the potato which he has named the "po- 
mato." Among all his many interesting and 
novel creations this certainly takes high rank, 
not only for its novelty but for its practical 
value. Looking to the common origin of the 
tomato and the potato, and considering the 
general appearance of the new fruit, he has 
happily combined the two names in designat- 
ing this new creation. 

The pomato is a fruit, not a vegetable, 
though growing upon a vegetable. It is what 
might be termed the evolution of a potato 
seed-ball. It first appears as a tiny green ball 
upon the potato top, and develops as the sea- 
son progresses into a fruit the size and general 
shape of a small tomato. The flesh is white, 
bearing, usually, a few small seeds. It is de- 
lightful to the taste, having the suggestion of 
quite a number of different fruits and yet not 
easily identified as any particular one. It may 
be eaten either raw or cooked. It is fine eaten 
raw out of hand, delicious when cooked, and 
excellent as a preserve. 

100 



> \ 



\ 



Al 



"I 



CHAPTER VI 

THE LILIES 

^URELY, since the world began, Nature 
'^ never presented a stranger spectacle than 
that seen several years ago on Mr. Bur- 
bank's proving grounds at Sebastopol, when a 
hundred thousand seedling hybrid lilies were 
in blossom at the same time. And never 
before did so vast a volume of perfume, — 
there is no other figure to express it, — rise 
toward the suminer sky. So intense was the 
fragrance that ranchmen a mile away could 
distinctly detect it, while all the country round 
about and the little town that lies at the 
entrance to this wondrous place was saturated 
with the odor. It was a strange composite 
fragrance, too, a thousand scents blended into 
one ; for with the tens upon tens of thousands 
of different lilies came not only a well-nigh 
infinite variety of flower, but an indescribably 
rare and complex odor unlike anything the 
world had known before. 

101 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

A visitor to the lily -testing grounds at 
Sebastopol, Mr. Charles Howard Shinn, in a 
newspaper article printed at the time, spoke 
thus of the general effect: 

"This great mass of a hundred thousand 
hlies in full bloom, on a California hillside, in 
mid-June, surrounded by orchards, wheat fields 
and fringes of forest, is peculiarly enchanting. 
As one approaches, the golden, orange and 
red tints which predominate, mingled with 
various shades of green, produce the effect of 
some huge product of Oriental looms. Little 
by little, as one draws closer, the colors sepa- 
rate, and widely diverse types of flowers are 
seen to be growing side by side. One finds 
lily stems varying in height from six inches to 
nine feet, all bearing open flowers. Some 
plants have many stems, others but one, and 
a few present stems with distinct branches 
like the branches of a tree. Flowers, leaves, 
stems and roots show every conceivable varia- 
tion. The biologist would find material for a 
volume in this lily field. 

"Some lilies have but one petal, rolled like 
a cigar and half-open like the broader end of 
a cypripedium. Others have two petals spread- 

102 



THE LILIES 

ing apart like wings. Others, again, have three 
or four or five petals. The great bulk, how- 
ever, have the normal six. The variation in 
color is extreme, ranging from white to dark 
purple, through surprising changes of com- 
binations. The methods of growth are equally 
curious. ^lany stems bear all the flowers at 
the top, almost level, a new system for Hlies, 
and especially useful in garden grouping. One 
such plant two and a half feet high carries 
fifty-six flowers. A tall spike of golden brown 
lilies, of L. HumholdtU type, carries ninety-one 
flowers and is four feet high. 

"In form, size, color, fragrance, this field of 
hybridized lily flowers is a revelation. There 
is certainly nothing like it elsewhere in 
America, and I do not know of any place in 
Europe where such a collection can be found. 
We came out of the field yellow and brown 
from head to foot with lily pollen." 

Comparatively little had been done by any 
one to treat lily culture in a broad manner, 
until Mr. Burbank took it up; — certainly no 
one had ever attempted it ujDon such a gigan- 
tic scale as this. The lily was recognized as 
an exceedingly diflnicult plant upon which to 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

work, and, while possibilities were admitted, 
it was shunned because of the obstacles in 
the way. Many had pronounced it incapable 
of any satisfactory hybridization. To one of 
Mr. Burbank's temperament the very fact 
that possibilities were promised in the face 
of difficulties made the outlook all the more 
attractive; for he had found that in nature, 
as well as in all departments of endeavor, the 
things which are most easy of accomplishment 
quite often are the least desirable; those 
which are the most difficult, the ones which 
yield the most important results. 

But here, as in so many departments, he 
had a distinct and commanding advantage 
over all others in the magnitude of the work. 
He had also the advantage of a superb climate 
and soil where lilies from different zones could 
meet upon a common congenial plane and 
where each one would be at its best. The 
lilies showed an unusual tendency to depart 
from their former life habits. Sports or 
abnormalities were very common. Some of 
them were valueless, save as curious testi- 
monials to the eccentricities of Nature when 
her hfe forces are disturbed and have not yet 

104 



I 



THE LILIES 

had time to adjust themselves; some had 
distinct value in the promise they made of 
greater things. Such as had a prophecy of 
some new and desirable trait, — added vigor, 
greater hardiness, adaptability, unusual form, 
or great beauty, — were preserved, and work 
upon them has steadily progressed. 

Nearly fifty different kinds of lilies were 
chosen from widely separated parts of the 
world. These were planted, and from the 
blossoms elaborate crossings by pollination 
were made through a series of years. The 
work was mainly done by means of the finger- 
tips, with a watch-crystal or small saucer to 
hold the pollen. It was what might be called 
pollination by wholesale; it had never been 
equaled in extent before. For several years 
this work proceeded, until Mr. Burbank 
was planting several pounds of seed per 
year. At last there were enough plants to 
begin the great test, and a hundred thousand 
of them were transplanted to the proving 
grounds at Sebastopol. Here they occupied 
two acres of ground. 

In the carrying forward of the work more 
than a million lily bulbs had been produced 

105 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

up to this time, and a vast number have since 
been grown. 

In strangeness of form these liUes rivaled 
anything Mr. Burbank has ever produced. 
For example, one seedling from a native wild 
California lily which grows only ten inches 
high produced all the way from twenty to 
forty blossoms on each of the short stalks put 
forth, whereas the usual number was from 
three to eight. One small dwarf lily, the 
result of a cross, bore twenty -eight flowers; 
while another, a branching lily with eight 
stems coming from one bulb, bore over two 
hundred buds and flowers. One plant of this 
cross showed thirty-seven stems. 

Speaking of the curiously interesting vari- 
ations in flower, plant and bulb, Mr. Burbank 
says: 

"One blossom is white; another pale straw 
or creamy white with thick recurving, chan- 
neled petals, studded with numerous papillge 
with light yellow anthers; another is per- 
fectly green throughout in appearance, very 
much resembling a trilhum in form and 
general character; some are tigridia - like ; 
others open their petals in such curious 

106 



THE LILIES 

manner that the flowers resemble sprekehas 
in form; some are crimson or yellow or 
darkest orange- yellow, with leopard spots or 
plain. Many grow six to eight feet high, 
others only six to eight inches. About one- 
fifth are fragrant, some slightly, others power- 
fully so. Some bear only two or three flowers 
to each stalk, while others have twenty to 
fifty or more. The leaves are broad or narrow, 
long or short, light green or dark green, and 
some beautifully striped with white. Some 
varieties have branching stems. 

" The bulbs are almost as much of a study 
as the flowers. Some have flat, thin, open 
scales like a rose or clematis flower ; others 
have close, thick, incurved scales, some inany- 
jointed, others entire and some crenated; a few 
with pink or red bulbs, — but oftener yellow, 
orange or white — some of them being nearly 
globular, others conical or flat. Some throw 
out numerous long moniliform, underground 
runners. Some varieties have a tendency to 
start early, others late." 

The calla was bred for larger size, combined 
with strength of stalk and great beauty, a 
blossom being produced at last nearly a foot 

107 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

across on a stem six and one-half feet high. 
Per contra, a perfect calla was made not more 
than an inch and a half in diameter and per- 
fect in every detail. 

Another calla was bred having handsome 
golden variegated leaves, in interesting contrast 
with the leaves which formerly had borne 
white spots. Before this great work, the 
common garden calla had had no odor, or, at 
best, only a faint and rather disagreeable one. 
As Mr. Burbank was examining a series of calla 
seedlings, he detected one which bore a fra- 
grance with the hint of violets and the sugges- 
tion, too, of the water-lily. This calla was 
isolated and bred for its perfume. Rigid 
selection and exclusion followed, and little by 
little the perfume was increased and intensi- 
fied until at last it was fixed, a rare and 
delightful attribute. The new flower also grew 
in marked profusion, and blossomed earlier 
than the caUa from which it has been bred, 
the most constant and abundant of all callas. 
]Mr. Burbank says : 

"Twenty-six years ago I began to cross our 
native Pacific Coast hlies, adding from time 
to time all the exotic species and varieties 

108 




A rare two-petaled hybrid seedling lily 



1 



THE LILIES 

which seemed to promise favorable results, 
until my collection was the most extensive in 
the world. These have been combined and 
selected, and recombined and reselected, until 
the most important results ever achieved 
among lilies are now an embodied fact. Of 
some of the older hybrids and seedlings I have 
as many as a thousand bulbs of each variety 
and have also half a million kinds yet to un- 
fold their petals for the first time, and am 
still planting from one to three pounds of 
hybridized lily seed every season. The best 
of the world's lily experts who visited my 
grounds decided that there were at least two 
hundred and fifty thousand lilies which were 
distinct hybrids among the millions of lilies 
then blooming on my grounds. 

"Can my thoughts be imagined, after so 
many years of patient care and labor, as, walk- 
ing among them on a dewy morning, I look 
upon these new forms of beauty, on which 
other eyes have never gazed? Here a plant 
six feet high with bright yellow flowers, beside 
it one only six inches high with darkest red 
flowers, and, further on, one of pale straw, or 
snowy white, or with curious dots and shad- 

109 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

ings; some deliciously fragrant, others faintly 
so; some with upright, others with nodding 
flowers; some with dark green, woolly leaves 
in whorls, or with pohshed, light green, lance- 
like, scattered leaves. 

"As the fresh, dew-laden petals of these 
new creations, which had never been spread 
out to the light of day, were unrolled before 
me, a new world of beauty seemed to have 
been found and a full recompense for all the 
care bestowed upon them. 

"The bulbs are a study, and had not some 
of them been in value ten times greater than 
their weight in gold, photographs would have 
been obtained to show their peculiar forms. 
Nearly all these new lilies are crosses from 
parent species selected for vigor, hardiness, 
easy management and rapid multiplication, as 
well as fragrance, beauty of coloring, grace 
and abundance of flowers. In these hybrids a 
broad foundation has been laid for endless 
variations which will reward lovers of flowers 
for ages to come." 

The development of the various lilies is 
going on under Mr. Burbank's direction upon 
a still more extensive scale, 

110 



CHAPTER VII 

PLUMS AND PRUNES 

TTT would be difficult to reach a satisfactory 
-^ estimate of the amount Mr. Burbank's 
commercial creations have already added to 
the world's wealth. This is particularly diffi- 
cult both because of the rapid progression of 
a new fruit through multiplication in different 
lands, replacing old fruits of its kind season 
by season, and because of the large number 
of varieties in his list, each one filling a sepa- 
rate field. For example, he has introduced 
over twenty varieties of plums and prunes, 
each with some distinctive and valuable char- 
acteristic, while he has made several thousand 
new plum and prune combinations, many of 
which are now under test. The potato which 
bears his name has increased the wealth of 
the United States by many millions of dollars, 
but the new plums and prunes promise to 
exert a still wider commercial and economic 
influence. One entire town in California, 

111 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

for example, has been built up very largely 
upon one or two of his plums. The plums 
introduced by a few trees in a region which 
was by nature and climate suited to them 
rapidly increased as growers saw their good 
points, until they became the center of a 
packing and shipping industry employing 
thousands of people in the growing and 
preparation of the fruit. 

Something of the wide - reaching influence 
of the new plums is seen in the fact that 
several of them are now being extensively 
cultivated on the island of Borneo, supplant- 
ing largely the native fruits of this type and 
promising to revolutionize the fruit culture 
of the island. They are also shipped from 
Borneo to surrounding countries. The late 
Cecil Rhodes became so much interested in 
the work of Mr. Burbank that he ordered 
all his new fruits for his extensive fruit ranch 
near Cape Town. One day several years 
afterward, a consignment of the plums which 
grew from these cuttings was shipped 1 8,000 
miles by steamer and rail from Cape Town 
to San Francisco, as a test, arriving after their 
long journey in prime condition. From many 

112 



PLUMS AND PRUNES 

other points, particularly in Europe, have 
come testimonials from those who have intro- 
duced various of IMr. Burbank's plums, all the 
more significant because the stock was bought 
not of him but of some dealer to whom in 
other years JNIr. Burbank had sold the original 
stock. His letter files are full of the heartiest 
thanks from American fruit-raisers for having 
made plums and prunes which have very 
greatly increased their revenues. One man 
enumerated the following points about a j^lum 
he had bought of Mr. Burbank, and his esti- 
mate of the fruit may be taken as the conden- 
sation of hundreds of letters: 1. A more rapid 
grower. 2. An earlier bearer. 3. An earlier 
ripener. 4. Larger fruit. 5. Richer in sugar. 
6. Its great size gives it a distinct commercial 
value over others. 

The new plums and prunes have been pro- 
duced both by crossing and by selection of 
seedlings. Sometimes six or even more species 
are combined in crossing to get just the char- 
acteristic desired. In other cases, the new 
plum comes from uncrossed seed. Hundreds 
of thousands of the pits are planted and, out 
of the young trees which grow, the most 

113 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

promising ones are chosen for grafting. These 
are grafted upon older trees, scores of them, 
perhaps, on a single tree, and all showing 
variations of leaf and fruit, presenting a curi- 
ous and striking appearance as they develop 
upon the same parent tree. As the grafts 
develop fruit the choicest ones are saved for 
further testing in order that, out of hundreds 
of thousands originally planted as seed, only 
the very best may be eventually saved. Color 
and size of leaf, shape of branch, size, color 
and taste of fruit, general appearance as to 
hardiness and thrift, prolificness, — all these 
and other points Mr. Burbank has under con- 
sideration as he makes his selections from 
season to season in his search for the best of 
all. Selection here, as in the production of his 
flowers, is imperative, — always the best from 
the best. 

The production of a new plum is not lightly 
to be entered upon, particularly when the 
scale of the work is that of Mr. Burbank's. 
First there must be a definite pattern, so to 
speak, in mind. If prevailing types of plums 
lack symmetry of form or beauty of color, the 
new plum must be planned to supply these 

114 



PLUMS AND PRUNES 

deficiencies. If present plums are too small, 
larger ones must be made ; if bearing scantily, 
more prolific ones; if injured by early frosts 
and adaptable only to certain regions, then a 
hardening of fruit and tree and an expansion 
of the zone of culture. Or it may be that the 
aim is to make a plum which assembles all 
these essentials in itself. 

To accomplish all of this is not the work 
of a day nor a year, perhaps not of a decade. 
Very often the whole world will be searched 
for a plum which has one certain characteristic 
essential to the building of the plum under 
process. It may be, too, that when this for- 
eign plum is found, apparently filling all tlie 
requirements, it may turn out no better tlian, 
perhaps not so good as, some plum of domes- 
tic growth. The mental pattern is made just 
as real and definite as the pattern of an in- 
ventor or the model of a sculptor. If the 
inventor, as his work advances, discovers some 
new feature which will make the invention 
more valuable, he will be quick to make use 
of it; and even the sculptor, in modeling his 
clay, may be in no small measure infiuenced 
by the living model before him. But even 

115 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

more may the plant-breeder be influenced by 
change, for, as in any one of the new plums 
upon which Mr. Burbank is working, some 
new trait of surpassing excellence may develop 
wholly independent of his original plan. At 
the best, the metal or the wood of the in- 
ventor is only metal or wood, the clay of the 
sculptor is only clay; but the material upon 
which Mr. Burbank works is throbbing with 
life, as truly life, even if a lower order, as the 
life of the man who handles it — life that is some- 
times wayward, sometimes stubborn, some- 
times bursting forth in surpassing beauty or 
strength in lines never dreamed of, sometimes 
manifesting itself in ways spectacular, indeed 
even dramatic. All the time, while holding to 
his pattern, he must be on the lookout for 
important departures. 

There are three vital points, in addition to 
many minor ones, which Mr. Burbank con- 
siders in the gathering of material upon which 
to build a new plum: 

1. He must have at the base a hardy plum, 
wild or tame; for, without endurance, the 
product might be practically worthless. 

2. He must have the best possible plum as 

116 



PLUMS AND PRUNES 

regards richness of food product ; for, without 
this, his new plum would soon be detected by 
the public and cast out as an impostor. 

3. He must have the most attractive-look- 
ing plum obtainable; for man delights to 
have beautiful fruit on his table; indeed, 
who shall say how large a part it plays with 
his digestion? 

So, in general, these three basic points must 
be considered, in addition to many others, in 
making the ideal plum. In a somewhat con- 
tradictory sense Mr. Burbank has made a 
good many ideal plums, each one having some 
attribute in addition to the essentials and 
thereby causing it to be peculiarly distinctive. 

For example, he has bred one plum with a 
dehcious fragrance, so powerful that when left 
in a closed room over night the whole apart- 
ment will be delightfully saturated with the 
odor. Another plum has not only the essen- 
tials but it has a flavor wholly distinct from 
the plum, in fact it is not to be distinguished 
from the Bartlett pear. So marked is this 
characteristic that when one of the foremost 
fruiterers of the world tasted the plum blind- 
folded, not knowing what manner of fruit he 

117 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

was eating, he pronounced it unquestionably 
the finest Bartlett pear he had ever tasted. 
Stranger still, as the plum developed, the tree 
has taken on much of the character of the 
Bartlett pear tree in leaf and structure, though 
why no one can tell, for it has never had the 
slightest pear tree blood in its veins. 

Still another plum was developed which 
showed phenomenal bearing qualities, while 
also being otherwise excellent. It was so 
tremendously prolific, so to use the words, 
that its very fecundity stood in its way. Thus, 
wherever grown, hired "strippers," as they are 
called, must be engaged to go into the or- 
chards when the fruit is green and strip the 
branches of all but just enough plums satis- 
factorily to mature. From a single tree by 
actual count 22,000 plums were stripped, 
enough even then being left on the tree 
to yield an abundant harvest. 

Another plum which was made over to 
order, so to speak, has been almost similarly 
prolific. It was a small, dull-colored, bitter, 
wild plum, the American beach plum, unfit 
to eat unless cooked. It was a remarkable 
plum in many ways, growing on almost any 

118 



PLUMS AND PRUNES 

soil, frequently in places rejected by all other 
vegetation. It would grow on sandy soil or 
heavy clay soil, on desert -like places, and on 
soil which now and then is submerged by the 
sea. It would grow in the drought as well as 
in seasons of rain. In fruit it was remarkably 
prolific, though the fruit was worthless. The 
plums were not much larger than small 
cherries, usually less than half an inch in diam- 
eter, the pit being relatively large and sur- 
rounded by a thin layer of bitter meat. There 
were quite a good many varieties, some 
ripening early, some late, and all of them 
very hardy as regards frost. 

It was this insignificant fruit that Mr. 
Burbank took under his care one day, seeing 
its possibilities and eager to ennoble it. 

By the utmost care in selecting and breed- 
ing through a series of years, the homely little 
outcast has been made into a beautiful deep- 
purple plum, dotted with white, averaging at 
least three inches in circumference, without a 
trace of the old bitter taste in all its rich 
yellow meat. The new plum has all the 
staying qualities of the hardy little ancestor 
and will thrive in warm regions or frost belts, 

119 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

on fertile soil or barren soil. The branches are 
so closely packed at bearing time that there is 
no room for leaves, only a solid compact 
mass of fruit. 

But a more wonderful plum than any of 
these has been made by Mr. Burbank, a plum 
without pit. This plum has not been placed 
upon the market because not entirely finished, 
though the pit has been bred out of it. For 
about two centuries there had been growing 
in France a tiny plum, so called, with only a 
suggestion of a pit. ]\Ir. Burbank took this 
plum, bred it with other plums to increase 
its size and beauty, and injected into it a rich 
new life. Years passed by in the testing, and 
at last the pit of the large luscious plum which 
was the result of the years of breeding has 
disappeared. It only remains now a matter of 
time to breed the pits from all plums and 
prunes and leave in their places so much more 
room for rich, nutritious food. JNIore than one 
skeptical person, numbering among them 
some prominent scientists of Europe and 
America, has stood beside one of the many 
trees which bear these stoneless plums upon 
Mr. Burbank's proving grounds at Sebastopol 

120 



PLUMS AND PRUNES 

and has been asked to take his knife and cut 
one of the plums in two. The surprise then 
shown, sometimes deepening into an apparent 
distrust of their own senses, has been one of 
the most dehghtful and one of the most prized 
compHments Mr. Burbank has ever received. 

There are two main hnes in plum life as 
known in the fruit-growing regions of this 
country, one leading to the plum proper, the 
other to the prune. Mr. Burbank gives this 
definition, which has been adopted as practi- 
cally covering the ground: "Any plum which 
will dry in the sun without spoiling is 
a prune." 

The reason why the plums which thus 
become prunes take on this dried shape is 
because of their large sugar -content, which 
enables them, like raisins, to preserve them- 
selves, as one might say, in their own sugar. 
The object of INIr. Burbank has been not only 
to make prunes which are larger in size than 
the old ones, but which are relatively richer in 
the amount of sweetness. 

The prune has become one of the important 
items in the dietary of the nations, perhaps 
even more highly appreciated abroad. The 

121 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

American prune has come more and more 
into favor in Europe. In fact, so desirable a 
prune is it that the French packers in 
season of scarcity at home import the Cah- 
fornia prunes, give them their own method 
of treatment, re-pack them, pay the Ameri- 
can duty, and send them back in large 
quantities to the United States as prime 
French prunes. California prunes are also in 
marked demand for home consumption in Eu- 
rope, largely supplanting the domestic product. 
This is shown by the steadily increasing export 
prune trade of the United States to Europe, 
and along with this goes a steadily decreasing 
import trade. In 1890-91 nearly thirty-five 
millions of pounds of prunes were imported 
into the United States, at a value of over two 
million dollars. Year by year since that time, 
with occasional fluctuations, the importation 
has declined, until, in 1904, the thirty-five mil- 
lions of pounds shrank to less than five hun- 
dred thousand pounds, at a value of only 
$47,000. And out of the total amount im- 
ported a very large proportion was grown in 
the United States as noted, exported and 
re-imported. 

122 



PLUMS AND PRUNES 

From 1897 to 1904, inclusive, the export of 
American prunes \^'as about two hundred and 
fourteen niiUion pounds. 

In 1894-5 the prune crop of Cahfornia 
amounted to about sixty-five milhon pounds; 
in 1904 it had risen to one hundred and fifty 
milHon pounds, while, during the decade, one 
billion, one hundred and ninety -one millions 
of pounds were raised. Large quantities are 
also raised in the adjoining states of Oregon 
and Washington. In California alone there 
were, in 1904, nearly seven million, five hun- 
dred thousand prune trees in bearing. 

While there are a number of varieties of 
prunes, the ones which Mr. Burbank has made 
are steadily advancing and supplanting the 
older varieties. It is quite safe to say that the 
influence of Mr. Burbank is becoming one of 
the greatest factors in the development of the 
prune industry of the United States, an in- 
dustry which now has become a staple asset of 
the nation. Many thousands of people find 
employment in the picking and packing of 
this fruit as well as in the care of orchards, 
while vast sums of money are invested. 

The production of plums has also been 

123 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

greatly influenced by Mr. Burbank. Year by 
year he has given new plums to the markets, 
a long time elapsing, of course, before they 
make their way, because they must first be 
tested by him for a series of years in order 
to see that they maintain their standard, and 
several additional years must elapse before 
enough can be grown to supply commercial 
demands. But as each new plum comes for- 
ward, its excellencies at once appeal to the 
public, and the growers are hard pushed to 
supply the demand. While he constantly has 
in mind the production of plums beautiful to 
look upon, he pays particular attention to the 
shipping qualities. The plums must be not 
only beautiful but they must withstand long 
journeys by rail and water. So he has bred his 
plums with this in mind, and has made them 
firmer of flesh and skin— has given them en- 
durance. Many illustrations might be given of 
the keeping qualities of the plums, but one 
will sufBce. Some plums were sent from 
Santa Rosa by mail, of course without any of 
the aids of refrigerator cars. It was dorxe as a 
test of their endurance. They were intended 
to be sent to a point in Virginia, but, by mis- 

124 



PLUMS AND PRUNES 

take, went to Vermont and, there being no 
delivery, they were returned. After having 
made tlie trans-continental journey twice by 
mail, they were as fresh and fine of appearance 
and as luscious to the taste as the ones picked 
from the trees upon the day of their arrival in 
Santa Rosa, after their long journey. 

As rapidly as he has perfected a plum or a 
prune, it passes from his hands and others reap 
the profits, — but he has accomplished his 
object, he has given something new and help- 
ful to the world. While he has the fine true 
imagination of the poet and a nature in closest 
harmony with all that is beautiful, at the same 
time he sees things from an intensely practical 
point of view. Upon this practical side of his 
work he has some decided views. He says: 

"With the world as a market, competi- 
tion is keen, and only the best fruits in the 
best condition will pay ; fortunately, it gene- 
rally costs much less per ton to produce large, 
first-class fruit than to produce the poorest 
and meanest specimens that are ever offered. 
Small fruit exhausts the tree much more 
rapidly than large fruit, as one pound of skin, 
stones and seeds represents at least ten or 

125 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

twelve pounds of fruit pulp; it will thus 
readily be seen that improved varieties which 
produce uniformly large, fine fruit are more 
economical manufacturers of fruit, and also 
that the product is more salable ; the difference 
in many cases will decide between success and 
failure. 

" Many varieties have two or three superior 
qualities, but woefully lack in many others. 
Some have a very weak and imperfect root 
system, no matter on what stock they may be 
grafted; others have scanty foliage, which 
readily falls a prey to drought or to fungus or 
insect enemies. Others are especially subject 
to blossom blight by late spring frosts, parch- 
ing winds or rains. Still others, though 
bearing the best of fruit, are so sparing of it 
that they are outstripped by others of less 
value. Numerous other faults are too well 
known to all observing fruit-growers. 

"The fruit-grower of today is strictly a 
manufacturer and should have the latest and 
best improvements. The manufacturer of pins 
and nails would not long tolerate a machine 
which failed to produce pins and nails every 
other season, or one which produced even 

126 



I 



PLUMS AND PRUNES 

occasionally an ill-assorted, rusty, unmarket- 
able product. And, revolutionary as it may at 
first thought appear, there is no good reason 
for permanently producing poor fruit; for in 
time new trees will be produced which will 
produce good fruit with the utmost regularity 
and precision. Of course, there never can be 
one variety which will be the best for all 
purposes, but it is perfectly possible to produce 
varieties which, for their own special use, can 
be relied upon to yield full crops of the best 
fruits without fail; all this must be done by 
careful selection and breeding. 

"It has been said that it were better for a 
man that a millstone be hung around his neck 
and that he be cast into the sea than that he 
should introduce a fruit or flower which should 
prove to be of no value. In the introduction 
of a fruit or flower, no one who has not been 
through the experience can fully appreciate 
the sense of responsibility, and no one can 
more deeply lament a failure than the 
introducer." 

It will be of interest to note here some of 
the more prominent among the plums and 
prunes which INIr. Burbank has produced : 

187 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

1885 — "Burbank" plum, "Satsuma" plum, 
imported from Japan with numerous others; 
improved, and introduced. 

1893 — First Japanese- American hybrid plum 
"Gold"; introduced. 

1893 — "Splendor" prune; introduced. 

1893 — "Wickson" plum; introduced. 

1893 — "Delaware" hybrid plum, "Juicy" 
plum, "October Purple" plum; introduced. 

1893 — "Hale" plum; introduced. 

1894 — "Giant" prune; introduced. 
1894 — "Doris" plum; introduced. 

1898 — "America," "Chalco" and "Apple" 
plums; introduced. 

1899— "Climax," "Sultan," "Bartlett" and 
"Shiro" plums; introduced, 

1899 — " Sugar " prune ; introduced. 
1901— "First" and " Combination " plums ; 

introduced. 

1901 — Many stoneless prunes; originated. 

This does not by any means include all the 
plums and prunes Mr. Burbank has produced 
which have shown desirable qualities, but 
only such ones as have shown unusual fitness 
to live. Hundreds of thousands of others are 
now under test. It would be idle to attempt a 

128 



PLUMS AND PRUNES 

prophecy of the vahie of such of these new 
plums and prunes as are finally chosen. They 
are not only likely to supplant all those plums 
hitherto produced by Mr. Burbank, as well as 
those in existence when he began his work, 
but, through the elimination of the pit and 
the substitution in its place of that much 
more nutriment, relentlessly drive out of the 
market all the standard prunes which now 
furnish the world's supply. 



129 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE SHASTA DAISY 

njnHE green hills rising behind the house 
-*- where Luther Burbank was born were 
ever an inviting place in his boyhood days. 
He knew the haunts of the wild flowers and 
the hour of their earliest appearing. From 
the time the snows gave way to the spring 
sun until they came again in the bleak No- 
vember days, he was in constant intercourse 
with the hills, learning the language of Nature 
in the only school where it is taught without 
an interpreter. Something in his own nature 
brought him into instant contact and sym- 
pathy with the great heart of the Nature 
around him. A certain peculiar intimacy with 
Nature grew up and produced, if one may so put 
it, the most absolute frankness toward her and 
trust in her. This was well illustrated one day 
in his maturer years when a great scientist 
called upon Mr. Burbank, Dr. Hugo de Vries, 
of Amsterdam, certainly one of the leading 

130 



I 



THE SHASTA DAISY 

botanists of his generation. The two men were 
in deep consideration of some of the most 
profound processes of Nature, when de Vrics 
made some remark in which there was a sug- 
gestion of the unrehabihty of Nature. 

"You are wrong! Dr. de Vries," Burbank 
instantly rephed with great earnestness, ignor- 
ing for the moment all scientific topics in 
order to come to the defense of his vast friend; 
"you are all wrong; Nature never lies. We 
may sometimes misunderstand her, we may 
not always be able to speak her language or 
properly translate her thoughts, but Nature 
never lies." 

The great botanist sat some time in silence, 
and then gravely nodded his head. 

There were many flowers upon the green 
hills around his boyhood home that the lad 
loved, violets and asters ; the royal goldenrod ; 
that soft breath of the spring, the delicate anem- 
one; roses and lilies and the traihng arbutus in 
their seasons; but there was one flower in 
which he took a particular interest, possibly 
because every man's hand was against it. This 
was the little wild field daisy, to many a 
farmer an unmitigated evil, a pest to be fought 

131 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

at every possible point, a vicious, persistent 
weed. When he had begun his market gar- 
dening and seed-raising, he frequently went to 
the hills for wild flower seeds, planting them 
in his garden and observing with curious inter- 
est how the plants sometimes varied from the 
parent plants. A certain chivalry, it may have 
been, a desire to reclaim the daisy from the 
company of the outcast weeds, caused him 
to include it also in his experiments. He 
found the daisy no less striking in its varia- 
tions than the other plants. 

There came a day in after years when he 
was to demonstrate again his interest in this 
little waif, to become its champion in a still 
larger way. For he had laid out in his mind a 
scheme for the ennoblement of this flower; — 
he would lift it from its low estate among the 
serfs and make it a queen. 

In England there grew a daisy larger than 
his little wild friend and coarser in stem and 
flower. In Japan grew another daisy, not 
large, but of exquisite purity of color and 
almost dazzling whiteness. On the Massachu- 
setts hills grew the American daisy, small, 
tenacious of life, hardy of constitution, not so 

132 







; «i 








V"''^ 






THE SHASTA DAISY 

white in its petals as its distant Japanese 
relative, not so large as its English cousin — he 
would unite the three. In order that the very 
best results might follow, he searched through 
a number of states, as time and opportunity 
offered, getting the best native wild daisies 
from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey 
and IMassachusetts, and from these best ones 
chose the best of them all. Sometimes, as 
happened in several instances with the daisy, 
he will be making a short journey by rail and, 
looking out the window, may see, as the train 
flashes by, some particularly striking patch of 
flowers. At the next station he gets out and 
either buys a ticket back to a station nearer 
the flowers or walks back to them, and then 
selects from them the choicest plants for use 
in some experiment under way. 

So from three continents he chose a daisy, 
the best he could get; — from them he made 
a fourth, the most wonderful daisy ever seen. 

In setting out thus to make a new flower 
out of old ones, INIr. Burbank does not depend 
upon any rules laid down for him by some one 
else. While he is never destructive but always 
constructive, aiming to create new forms of 

:i33 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

life that shall be better than the old, he is 
restive under rules. If such were imposed 
upon him, it would be but natural that he 
should at once proceed to break them, not so 
much for the delight of breaking them as a 
protest against conventionality. He does not 
start out among his flowers in the dawn of a 
spring morning with a book on botany in one 
hand and a treatise on plant-breeding in the 
other. Had he done so, there would have 
been no Luther Burbank. He utterly ignores 
much of what so-called scientists have set 
down. Nor does he depend upon scientific 
nomenclature unless it is sensible. In his 
conversations he is peculiarly free from scien- 
tific terminology; so direct and simple is his 
speech that the greatest scientist and an 
unlettered farm laborer may sit side by side 
and both understand. I cannot better illus- 
trate this than by a single word which I saw 
on a box high up in his storehouse of rare 
seeds and bulbs. The box contained seeds that 
for some reason had been carefully sterilized. 
The outside bore this word, written in bold 
letters: "Boiled." 

This word bore a volume. 

134 



THE SHASTA DAISY 

In the scheme laid out for the new daisy 
there were certain well-defined characteristics 
to be developed; a fact that illustrates how 
systematic and precise his work. He wished a 
daisy that should have grace, beauty, hardi- 
ness. He wanted a slender but firm stem at 
least two feet in length, free from all branches; 
a blossom larger than any daisy ever before 
seen ; petals of the purest white. And so seeds 
from these plants from distant quarters of the 
globe were sown, and when they came to 
blossom he crossed them, combining each with 
the other, joining them in a union as intimate 
as life, as powerful as death. For he was 
compelled to put to death their old selves ; 
— their life -long habits, their manner of 
life, — even their form and texture, all must 
give way ; — and from this death he would 
bring; forth a resurrection. 

So completely was the poUinating done 
that after the merging was ended the strain of 
blood, so to call it, of each plant now flowed 
in the veins of one. And yet this act of 
fertilization or hybridization or new birth, call 
it what you will, was but an incident in the 
creation — the great struggle was ahead. 

135 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

The seeds from the first united flower were 
not more than six or eight in number. These 
were sown, and from the plants which grew 
only the very best and those approaching the 
ideal were chosen, so that at the second stage 
of the test there were probably fifty seeds. 
This, of course, gave a greatly enlarged num- 
ber in the progression, and soon there were a 
hundred thousand seeds, all having come from 
plants which had been selected from their 
fellows. These hundred thousand seeds were 
sown in a box of earth about ten feet 
square, at the home grounds at Santa Rosa. 
Great precautions have to be taken to prevent 
the birds and other pests, as gophers, moles, 
and worms from doing damage, as well as to 
provide against various plant diseases. One 
gopher or one flock of thievish birds may 
undo in an hour the work of years. 

As soon as the plants were large enough to 
transplant, they were taken up and set out 
again at Sebastopol on a plot of ground an 
acre or more in extent. The ground had been 
the scene of many another wonderful experi- 
ment; for the earth at Sebastopol is no sooner 
relieved of one absorbingly interesting test 

136 



THE SHASTA DAISY 

than another is ready — there has never been 
another plot of earth with such strange ex- 
periences in the history of the world. 

In this act of transplanting, and indeed, in 
every other act in these experimentations, the 
utmost care is necessary. There is much work 
which INIr. Burbank cannot delegate. Certain 
things he can assign to others, but he will not 
delegate any work to hands not in sympathy 
and closest touch with Nature. The men to 
care for this new field of daisies must be those 
who not only know how deftly to remove 
weeds, how to note and guard against all the 
ills a plant falls heir to, but they must be men 
of keen and intimate sympathy with the work 
itself. The men who do this work are picked 
men, picked among thousands. So very many 
applications for work under Mr. Burbank are 
made that he early gave up answering by per- 
sonal letter, and printed forms are sent out, 
kindly but clear. Many graduates of univer- 
sities and colleges are among the number. 
The very gentleness and modesty of the man 
frequently have been misunderstood by these 
young men fresh from their books ; and, liter- 
ally running over with information, they have 

137 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

hastened with all sincerity to give him the 
benefit of their knowledge and to furnish him 
with pointers for the carrying on of his work. 
But while he would never discharge a man 
because he was a university graduate, — for he 
has an ardent sympathy for all higher educa- 
tion that is sane, symmetrical, and devoid of 
veneer, — yet he has never been able to keep 
in service a single university student. Time 
and again some enthusiastic young fellow 
would enter upon the work, and, bred to the 
nomenclature and the traditions of the scien- 
tists, would at once begin enlightening Mr. 
Burbank on the best plan to follow in a given 
instance, forgetting that the silent man pa- 
tiently listening to him stood at the head of 
the plant-breeders of the world. 

Not only does he demand sympathy upon 
the part of his workmen and the rarest intelli- 
gence obtainable, but he demands absolute 
sobriety. Much of the work of poUenation, 
grafting, budding, seed-sowing, and even so 
apparently simple a piece of work as the re- 
moving of weeds from around thousands of 
the tiny plants, requires the very steadiest of 
nerves, so that no workman may use tobacco 

138 



THE SHASTA DAISY 

or liquor in any form, or any manner of stimu- 
lant that will befog a brain or benumb a 
nerve. 

When the hundred thousand daisies were 
well started in their new home, selection 
began, — as important an act in its way as the 
act of breeding by which they were brought 
into being. During the six months that they 
were in bloom, they were subjected to con- 
stant supervision and scrutiny. Twice a week 
the entire field was scanned by an eye that 
has perhaps never been equaled for percep- 
tiveness. The variations from the parent stock 
in leaf, stalk, petal, size — all were noted, and 
the instant a plant was found which in any 
one of these particulars threw light upon the 
general problem, it was set apart. Now and 
then there would be one with grace and 
strength but no beauty, again one with a 
wonderful blossom on a stumpy little stem, 
now one on a lovely long stem but cloudy 
as to color. 

In all such work Mr. Burbank carries with 
him a small ivory rule, with which he takes 
constant measurements of stalk and blossom. 
The length and width of the petals, as 

139 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

well as the span of the whole flower, are im- 
portant. The object of these measurements is 
to find the plants which are coming nearest 
to the ideal in his mind. 

Out of the hundred thousand plants, those 
were chosen which came nearest this ideal and 
their seeds were in turn planted. This process 
was repeated for eight years. In the process 
of development that which often happens in 
his tests was seen, — certain plants produced 
what might be called unnaturally large and 
beautiful flowers. Sometimes the bloom of a 
single daisy would measure very nearly two 
feet in circumference, seven inches from tip to 
tip of petals. At first thought, these plants 
would be the ones naturally to be chosen from 
all the others. But not so. They had grown 
to their great size under peculiarly favorable 
conditions, both of climate, soil and super- 
vision. The aim in creating these plants was 
to fit them for the general public, for the 
flower lovers of the world; for Alaska and 
Florida, for Norway and Italy; for all sorts of 
soil, climates and people. It would be rare, 
indeed, that they would receive more than the 
average treatment of the average gardener; 

140 




One of the "Shasta" daisies. The blossoms are from four to six 
inches in diameter 



^i 



i 



THE SHASTA DAISY 

never would they find another such a master 
as they had had. 

So average conditions must be taken into 
account, and an average best flower be made 
for these conditions. It is a cardinal principle 
of Mr. Burbank's life never to let a plant de- 
ceive him by show of some surpassing excel- 
lence which, under ordinary conditions, would 
not be apt to manifest itself. "If I deceive 
myself," he puts it, "I deceive the public, 
too." From the medium plants the stock was 
grown and re -grown until he produced a 
flower at last combining all the desirable 
qualities with adaptability to average condi- 
tions. This flower was from three inches in 
diameter for the smaller ones to over six 
inches in diameter where conditions ap- 
proached the ideal. 

In breeding these new daisies still another 
attribute was constantly in mind, that of 
hardiness, hardiness in the growing plant, 
keeping qualities in the cut -flowers. So all 
through the tests only the sturdiest plants 
were kept; all the weak and sickly ones were 
at once destroyed. It was for this very charac- 
teristic of endurance that the little wild daisy, 

141 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

with its tenacity of life and its ability to with- 
stand heat and cold, was chosen. So when the 
end came a flower was produced that would 
grow equally well inside the arctic circle and 
under the equator. The cut-flowers, too, will 
remain fresh and beautiful in water for from 
three to six weeks. A gift of some of his 
choicest stock which graced a Thanksgiving 
table was still beautiful at Christmas. 

As Mr. Burbank puts it, they will grow 
anywhere out-of-doors where it is not cold 
enough to kill an oak tree, and they will grow 
for anybody. They are perennial, increasing 
in number of blossoms from year to year. But 
if, at the first, the plant is left to itself it will 
blossom itself to death the first year. All but 
one or two of the first buds must be removed, 
and sometimes not a single one is left. Thus 
treated, the plants strengthen themselves and, 
after the first season, a single clump will bear 
from two hundred to five hundred of the huge 
white blossoms. The plants may be multi- 
plied indefinitely thereafter simply by dividing 
them at the roots. They will blossom for sev- 
eral months in the average temperate zone 
climate, in Cahfornia blooming six months or 

142 



II 



THE SHASTA DAISY 

more out of the twelve ; under specially fa- 
vorable conditions, throughout the whole year. 

An extremely interesting feature of the 
new flower is that it seems to have lost all 
its bad habits. AVhere once it was, at the best, 
a pest to be dreaded, multiplying with remark- 
able rapidity and driving absolutely necessary 
food products to the wall, it now keeps itself 
apart from the weeds of its ancestry in a cer- 
tain aristocratic exclusiveness. It produces 
but very little seed and that large in size. 
Mr. Burbank has grown millions of the plants 
in his tests, but a self-sown daisy has never 
appeared upon his grounds. 

The flower itself is one of remarkable 
beauty, a rare, well-nigh brilliant white of 
great size, the center a pure yellow, with long, 
graceful stems. It is not only highly decora- 
tive in the inass, forming a magnificent note 
in garden or lawn, but it lends itself with a 
grace all its own to the bride at the altar or 
for the last tender tribute to the dead. From 
the first time he saw it, Mr. Burbank had 
always held in deep veneration JNIount Shasta, 
a snow-capped peak of the high Sierras, one 
of the conspicuous landmarks of Cahfornia. 

143 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

As the name of the mountain means white, 
and as its summit is always covered with a 
coronal of snow, he chose the name as pecu- 
liarly fitting for such a flower. 

Now and again Mr. Burbank creates some 
flower or plant which to him seems practically 
perfect ; that is to say, it is so nearly up to his 
ideal that he does not think it necessary 
or profitable to give any further time to it. 
Again, he leaves a flower in its class by itself, 
perfected as far as his hands may make it, and 
then fashions another from the material that 
was left over. The new flower may have cer- 
tain characteristics of the completed one, but 
it will have others so very different it becomes 
a practically individual creation. In the breed- 
ing of the daisy some peculiarly interesting 
and curious variations are developed. In cer- 
tain plants these variations assume what are 
called abnormalities, while in other cases they 
are irregularities,^ — irregular but undeniably 
beautiful. Certain of the hybrid daisies showed 
a tendency to become double, their petals in 
some cases also being strangely convoluted. 
The doubling was somewhat in the manner of 
the chrysanthemum. This tendency was en- 

144 



THE SHASTA DAISY 

couraged, and gradually, led onward from year 
to year, the petals multiplied in number, 
crowded closer and closer into the golden 
center, until, finally, a completely perfect 
double blossom was produced, even larger 
than the Shasta, entirely white. In form it 
suggests the chrysanthemum, though quite 
distinct from its Japanese friend in character 
and promising to become a notable rival. It 
differs also in length of blooming time, its 
period extending over five to six months in- 
stead of the one month of the chrysanthemum. 
Hundreds of flowers have passed through 
some such life history as this at the hands of 
Mr. Burbank. Some have been led in one 
direction, some in another, but all led upward 
to a more beautiful life, all glorified by his 
touch. IMany years of his life have been 
crowded to the utmost with the details of 
what may be called utilitarian productions, 
forms of plant life whose chief value is to add 
to the wealth of nations. It would be quite 
impossible to say how many millions of 
dollars he has thus added, nor would it be in 
the reach of the imagination to estimate what 
the world is yet to reap from his sowing. 

U5 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

And yet, in the midst of his labor for the 
practical good of the race, he has never lost 
sight of that more exalted resolve to leave 
the world a far more beautiful place than it 
was when he entered it. 



146 




The cactus in the f()rcu,i-ouiul is the ordinary thorny kind. Those 
in the rear are the thornless ones of the same species 



CHAPTER IX 

THE THORNLESS EDIBLE CACTUS 

^I^HE problems which confront Mr. Bur- 
-■- bank in his work are many and some- 
times of great difficulty. One plant may 
present a simple nature and a comparatively 
short life history. Another may be exceed- 
ingly complex in nature and of great age. The 
first he finds easy of manipulation, the second 
often very difficult. The plants with millions 
of years back of them, which may be traced in 
the very rocks themselves, are likely to prove 
stubborn, to persist in their old habits ; or, if 
they at first appear to yield, to return to these 
old habits at a later day. 

He has found this particularly true of the 
cactus, in the changing of which he has 
accomphshed one of his most wonderful 
achievements. For years he had had the 
cactus under consideration. It had long 
seemed to him that it should be taken out of 
its environment and set forward among the 

147 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

helps instead of the hindrances of the race. 
Sometimes he comes instantly to a conclusion, 
seeing immediately the bearing of things and 
setting out upon a certain course fortified at 
all points. Sometimes, as in the regeneration 
of the cactus, he is met with grave problems 
which demand profound study. 

When he turned to the cactus on which he 
was to spend more than ten years of study, it 
was, in the main, a stubborn, irreconcilable 
foe to the race ; in order to make it a friend of 
man its wliole nature must be changed ; it 
must be re-created. To the avera<xe man it 
would seem a waste of time and energy to 
seek to improve a plant which for millions 
of years had been hostile to the race, which 
seemed to have absolutely nothing in common 
with civilization, which by its pariah -like 
nature seemed peculiarly fitted for a home 
upon the desert, its closest comrades the 
rattlesnake and the scorpion, its highest aim, 
apparently, to cause the death of some thirst- 
maddened animal driven to eat its juicy but 
deadly leaves. 

But, the more difficult the problem, the 
keener his desire to solve it. He knew that 

148 



THE THORNLESS EDIBLE CACTUS 

tlie cactus, even in its wild and defiant shape, 
had certain unquestioned excellencies. It 
was undeniably hardy; it would grow and 
thrive where nothing else would, welcoming 
the blistering heat of the desert and growing 
powerful where rain seldom falls. It had much 
that was nutritious, both in its thick thalli, or 
leaves, and in its golden or crimson fruit. 
Wherever it had been given a chance away 
from its desert home and under more favor- 
able conditions, it had shown phenomenal 
thrift. It was not one of those plants which 
will not bear transplanting from a wild to a 
civilized state. 

Two main obstacles had first to be removed 
— the countless thorns upon the cactus, cover- 
ing branch and leaves and fruit, and the 
spicules of the leaves, the woody fibrous skele- 
tons of the thalli which made them more or less 
indigestible. These overcome, there remained 
the development of the fruit and the fitting of 
the leaves to be a food, food even for man as 
well as beast. 

All this he has accomplished, — nothing 
more marvelous has ever been done in plant 
life. It would be exceedingly difficult to say 

149 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

which one of Mr. Burbank's creations is the 
most valuable to the world from a practical 
point of view, which one adds most to the 
wealth of nations. But probably no other 
creation has surpassed this one, for it provides 
for the sustenance of the race, food for man 
and food for beast; it utilizes the vast desert 
areas of the world without the intervention 
of irrigation, though irrigation will aid here as 
elsewhere ; it converts enormous reaches of 
semi-arable land in all zones to profitable 
husbandry. 

It had long been known that there were 
certain kinds of cactus growths having few, 
if any, thorns and certain ones the fruit of 
which natives of some countries considered 
edible. It sometimes happens in Mr. Bur- 
bank's work that the essential thing is to com- 
bine excellent attributes and eliminate bad 
ones, rather than to create a wholly new plant. 
And so it was in the case of the cactus. And 
yet, in one sense, the cactus he has produced 
is absolutely new, because no other cactus has 
ever combined so many excellencies, devoid of 
obnoxious elements, — he has bred out the bad 
and bred in the good. It is quite like the 

150 



THE THORNLESS EDIBLE CACTUS 

touch of a great poet who finds the prosy 
story of a Hamlet or a Lear and leaves it a 
masterpiece. 

Out of some twenty genera of cacti, recog- 
nized by naturalists, only five occur in the 
United States, but these are among the most 
varied of all in their species, so that the one 
thousand known varieties of cactus are nearly 
all restricted to America. It is upon one of 
these five, common to the United States, the 
Opuntia, that Mr. Burbank has worked as a 
basis. It is of the variety having flat, thick 
leaves, though sometimes inclined to become 
cylindrical. It is a native of Mexico and South 
America. In their natural state their flowers 
are very striking, some of them red, others 
purple, others yellow. One of the species of 
the Opuntia is cultivated in Mexico as a host 
for the cochineal insect. The insect thrives 
upon its leaves, is killed at the proper time 
and dried, and from it is produced the brilliant 
carmine color so useful in commerce. The 
juice of the fruit is sometimes used as a 
water-color for painting and for coloring con- 
fectionery. Along the shores of the Mediter- 
ranean are several species of the Opuntia, the 

151 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

fruit of one of which is called the Indian fig 
and is much liked. 

One of the Opuntias is hardy even in Alaska 
and in other similar climates, a characteristic 
which has had an important bearing on the 
work. This cactus was called in, also, for the 
scheme laid out contemplated not only a cactus 
without thorns and spicules and preeminently 
a food, but one which should be adapted to the 
arctics as well as the tropics, one, as Mr. Bur- 
bank puts it, which will grow anywhere where 
man can live from the soil. Other varieties 
were also chosen, one for one characteristic, 
one for another, but all essential in the build- 
ing up of the ideal plant. 

Seeds were secured from all the different 
varieties needed and planted by the thousands 
in beds specially prepared. The plants were 
in rows a few inches apart, from two to ten 
thousand plants to a bed. Extensive crossings 
were made by pollination as soon as the blos- 
soms came, this being followed up for several 
seasons. The object of this crossing, or hybri- 
dization, was to break up radically, once and 
forever, the habits fastened upon the plants 
for perhaps millions of years. Seeds from 

152 



THE THORNLESS EDIBLE CACTUS 

these new plants were then planted. So per- 
sistent is the cactus in its habits that thou- 
sands of new seedlings showed no tendency 
toward improvement. Indeed, many of them, 
as if in very defiance of man, bore uglier 
thorns than any of their ancestors. Many of 
them were a mass of woody fiber. But some 
very few showed that a profound change was 
coming over their lives. This was indicated 
by a notable lessening of the spines, thorns 
and bristles. All such plants were isolated for 
further crossing and selection. Tests were 
going on all the while, also, to ascertain 
whether or not any plants were losing their 
spicules. Such as were found improving in 
this direction were also isolated. And so for 
every excellence desired there was the sharpest 
scrutiny, and also for every bad feature — it 
was a daily battle for the best. At last, when 
ten years had gone by, the end of all this 
preliminary breeding and crossing and selecting 
came, and alongside the white picket fence 
which surrounds the home of Mr. Burbank 
rose a giant cactus, fully eight feet in height, 
bearing thalli or leaves from ten inches to a 
foot in length, five to eight inches in width, 

153 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

nearly an inch in thickness, bearing fruit of 
large size, not a thorn upon it, not a spicule in 
all its rich meat, — the bitter enemy of the 
desert converted into an abiding friend of 
man. 

In creating this edible, thornless cactus Mr. 
Burbank took into account a thousand and 
one things which may find no mention here, 
but one of them which may be noted shows 
how persistently practical is all his work. It 
takes much of the vital forces of the cactus to 
make its powerfully constructed thorns and to 
supply its thalli with spicules. In breeding 
these away from it he gives to Nature the 
opportunity to devote all her energies to 
the production of food and fruit, and this will 
have a most important bearing upon the 
future ; he has not only transformed the 
cactus as to its product but has, in removing 
these thorns and spicules, provided a means 
for vastly increasing this product. 

The fruit of the new cactus is in shape quite 
hke a fat cucumber slightly flattened at both 
ends. It is about two and one-quarter inches 
in diameter by three and a half inches long. 
Sometimes it is a beautiful yellow in color, 

154 



li 



THE THORNLESS EDIBLE CACTUS 

while in the fruit from another plant the flesh 
is crimson. It is delicious to the taste. To 
some it has the flavor of a peach, to some a 
melon, to some the suggestion of a pineapple, 
to some a blackberry — to every one who tastes 
it a different flavor from anything before 
eaten. It is, indeed, a new taste for the palate 
of the world. It may be eaten fresh or cooked, 
or it may be preserved. The thalli, too, have a 
peculiarly attractive flavor when cooked and 
may be eaten in a variety of ways, or they 
may be put up as ginger or melon rinds are 
preserved. As a food for cattle the thaUi are 
peculiarly rich, at least one half as nutritious 
as alfalfa, and they will produce the finest 
beef, mutton and pork. 

It is quite significant, it may be said in 
passing, that at a time when industrious 
explorers of the United States Government 
were scouring the desert places of the earth 
in search of a thornless cactus which they 
thought might be introduced into the arid 
regions of America, finding at last in Algeria 
a prickly pear almost spineless, INIr. Burbank 
had been for years cultivating tens of thou- 
sands of cacti upon his proving gi'ounds, 

155 



1 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

thousands of them at that very time practically 
thornless and spiculess, and all marching 
forward under his direction to produce a 
cactus which should not only have none of 
these undesirable things but which should 
have many others of distinct value to man. 

An indication of the wonderful growing 
powers of the new cactus is seen in the fact 
that in three years' tiine a single plant from 
seed produces six hundred pounds of food. 

Another, and most important, feature of the 
new cactus is that it has begun to breed true 
to type, from the seed, while it, however, 
invariably persists from cuttings of the leaves. 
The cactus, as well as all other plants, 
stubborn or pliable, persists when once it has 
been definitely fixed in its new ways. Just as 
the cactus through all the ages has persisted in 
bearing thorns and persisted in filling its thalH 
with spicules, just so it will persist in getting 
along without them when once it has been 
fully broken of the habit of bearing them. So 
the new cactus begins a new era in its family, 
an era of unexampled prosperity, and the era 
of good will and not enmity to man. 

The possibihties of the new cactus have an 

156 



THE THORNLESS EDIBLE CACTUS 

enormous scope. The desert land on the globe 
is estimated to be two billion, seven hundred 
millions of acres, an area six thousand square 
miles larger than the area of the United States 
inclusive of its insular possessions. All this 
save, perhaps, in some case where absolutely 
no rain falls, may be reclaimed for food for 
man and beast if needs be. The regions known 
as steppes, much of which is semi-arable, is 
estimated at nearly nine billions of square 
miles additional, practically all of which may 
be utilized for the new cactus. The fertile 
regions of the globe are considerably larger 
than both these regions, some twenty-nine 
millions of square miles, over sixteen billions 
of acres. On every foot of fertile soil the 
cactus will grow with still greater rapidity 
than in the desert, for it takes on a new and 
powerful impulse under cultivation. 

These figures give something of the possi- 
bilities. In ]VIr. Burbank's own words: 

"The population of the globe may be 
doubled and yet, in the immediate food of the 
cactus plant itself and in the food animals 
which may be raised upon it, there would still 
be enough for all." 

157 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

The new cactus will not be raised to sell. 
It is not at this time fully ready, for while the 
main end has been reached, other work in it 
must be done before it begins its career. As 
soon as it is finished, any man with a few feet 
of earth in the corner of some city back yard, 
any man with a garden in the country, any 
man with acres which have lost their fertility 
or with large areas on mountain or desert 
which have been long abandoned, may be- 
come a sharer in the fruits of this act. For 
here, as in all that he has ever done, the 
supreme purpose of his life looms up, colossal 
in its contrast with the mean selfishness of 
man : He has done all for the advancement of 
the race. 

This fearsome dreaded foe of the race has 
been conquered, the times of little rain are 
set at naught, the great flame -hearted sun 
itself, burning its mighty way across the 
blistering desert is defied, the whole desert 
and arable regions of the globe by the act of 
one man may become a limitless reservoir of 
food. 



158 



CHAPTER X 

CERTAIN GENERAL FEATURES 

XN a study of Mr. Burbank's great work one 
-*- is not less amazed at its extent than baffled 
by its variety. His approach to Nature hes 
through many avenues; — it is a source of 
never-ending surprise to see how completely 
he commands these avenues while steadily 
opening others. 

In this chapter it is proposed to touch upon 
some of the many experiments which may not 
be incorporated in thic volume as individual 
chapters because of the limitations of space, 
though in them may be found ample material 
for such chapters. 

Roses have long held high favor with Mr. 
Burbank, both because of his love for the 
flower itself and because of its possibilities in 
the way of increase in size, enrichment of 
color and odor, and in the adaptation of 
certain roses, highly prized but confined to a 
restricted zone of cultivation, so that they 

159 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

may be elsewhere enjoyed. Some years ago 
he developed a rose primarily for bedding 
purposes, purchased by an eastern florist and 
by him put upon the market, the Burbank 
rose. It seemed to catch something of the 
tremendous energy and enthusiasm of its 
creator, for it soon made itself felt as the freest 
flowering rose in cultivation. It begins to 
blossom when it is not more than three inches 
in height and, if the climate will permit, it 
keeps on blossoming the entire year. In colder 
climates it goes into winter quarters unafraid, 
and hastens out of its long sleep at the very 
earliest call of spring. It is a double rose, a 
deep rose-pink in color, beautifully shaded 
from the center and nearly three inches in 
diameter. In colder climates, when October 
days come the outer petals take on a carmine 
hue. The plants develop into symmetrical 
bushes, adding to their attractiveness. 

This rose ran the gauntlet of the World's 
Fair in St. Louis, in 1904, and won the gold 
medal over all competitors as the best 
bedding rose in the world. It is only one of 
many superb varieties of roses which ISIr. 
Burbank has made. 

160 



CERTAIN GENERAL FEATURES 

Mr. Biirbank was attracted by a wild ever- 
lasting flower which produces a rather inferior 
blossom in its Australian home, but which 
promised to develop into something far more 
attractive. Following the usual course of 
selection, he chose from among its plants those 
bearing the choicest blossoins, saved the seeds 
from these plants, and thus by constantly 
choosing those plants that approached the 
model in his mind, carried the flower forward 
through successive generations to a larger and 
far more beautiful state. The color of the 
blossoms, a delicate pink, was intensified and 
the blossom itself doubled in size. 

There are numerous "everlasting" flowers, 
more or less attractive to the eye, and to add 
a new flower to their list would not have been 
so extraordinary a thing, but the development 
of the Australian flower had a wholly distinc- 
tive purpose, the production of a flower for 
use in the manufacture of millinery goods and 
for use in allied decorative lines. Thus the 
new flower becomes commercially important, 
promising very largely to displace artificial 
flowers of wire, paint and cloth for the adorn- 
ment of women's hats. The flower is not only 

161 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

beautiful in form and color and everlasting, 
but it is fadeless and will not be injured by 
handling. One of the largest millinery manu- 
facturing firms has contracted to buy the 
flower. INIr. Burbank makes note of the fact 
that there are other flowers of this kind sus- 
ceptible of like improvement. 

Fifteen years ago IVIr. Bin-bank, taking into 
account the fact that the quince can be grown 
with probably less expense than any other 
fruit and that it had never occupied the place 
which he thought it should occupy, set about 
its improvement. It is said that some of the 
choicest so-called quince jellies on the market 
have been made from the refuse of apples, 
pears and other fruits brought up to the imita- 
tion of the quince flavor by judicious doctor- 
ing. The quince itself had long been neg- 
lected by fruit-raisers, and, at its best, was 
an inferior fruit compared with other fruits. 

The "pineapple" quince was the outcome of 
all the years of work upon this fruit, a quince 
which, as JMr. Burbank says, "will cook as 
tender in five minutes as the best of cooking 
apples and with a quince flavor not before 
equaled. Jelly made from it is pronounced 



CERTAIN GENERAL FEATURES 

by some superior to that made from any other 
fruit. The fruit in form and size very 
much resembles the Orange quince but is 
smoother and more globular; in color much 
lighter yellow, with an average weight of 
about three-quarters of a pound each." Still 
other varieties are under way which promise 
to far surpass even the pineapple quince. 

For many years Mr. Burbank has carried on 
extensive tests in berries of different kinds. 
INIany tests are still under way at Sebastopol. 
One of the most important features of this 
line of work is the ultimate removal of the 
thorns from all thorn-bearing berries, and 
from roses as well. Mr. Burbank asked me 
one day, as we were walking through the 
proving grounds at Sebastopol, to bend over a 
blackberry bush growing rather close to the 
ground, and rub its stem against my face. It 
certainly was a novel experience — the thorns 
had been entirely bred away from the plant. 
So will it be with all thorn-bearing fruits if he 
shall find time to transform them, for, as in 
this particular instance, all that is essential is 
that a systematic and patient course of seleq- 
tion be followed. 

JG3 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

One of the rarest of all the fruits which 
have come from Mr. Burbank's hand is the 
white blackberry, the union of a small light- 
colored wild berry, of no particular impor- 
tance, and a Lawton blackberry. The union 
gave to the new plant great vigor and large 
size to the berry, the berry, at the same 
time, losing the dark purplish black of its 
larger ancestor and appearing a clear, beauti- 
ful white. The fruit is not only fair to look 
upon, but delightful to the taste. Some idea 
of the vastness of the work even in the pro- 
duction of berries is shown in the fact that 
in producing the white blackberry sixty-five 
thousand hybrid bushes which did not come 
up to the standard set for them were de- 
stroyed at one time. One plant out of sixty- 
five thousand, but the one successful plant 
paid for all the time, the trouble, and the 
infinite patience which had been expended. 
He is still working upon the white black- 
berry in order to give it still finer flavor 
and to increase its productiveness. 

In the crossing of the various berries, no- 
tably the blackberry and the raspberry, re- 
markable variations in both stalk and leaf 

164 



CERTAIN GENERAL FEATURES 

were seen. The stalks varied greatly in color, 
also, some of them white, some red, some 
dark purple, some bronze, some yellow, some 
of them brown or green or black. The 
leaves were remarkably interesting in their 
wonderful diversity. Literally scores of 
leaves, all different in shape and size, grew 
from the seed of one hybrid blackberry 
plant. 

A few seeds were secured for INIr. Bur- 
bank by one of his collectors from a black- 
berry growing in the Himalaya Mountains. 
The plants which came from the seeds were 
selected through a series of years with the 
end in view of encouraging and still further 
developing the rapidity of growth which was 
said to characterize the foreign berry. At 
last a single plant, a young plant at that, 
was developed which covered one hundred 
and fifty square feet of ground, stood eight 
feet in height, and bore over a bushel of 
fruit. 

I saw growing on Mr. Burbank's grounds 
at Santa Rosa a row of plants apparently 
but lately out of the ground, possibly an 
inch in height. The row was about six feet 

165 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

long, a clearly defined green line on the dark 
earth. A foot or so from the tiny plants 
was another row double in size. Alongside 
of this were other rows, larger and thriftier 
of growth than the preceding one. At the 
end of the plat which embraced the test, 
was a heavy row of rich dark grass, broad 
of leaf, dense of growth, the leaves being 
from ten to twelve inches long. The plants 
had a remarkably brilliant green color and 
were the picture of vegetable health. The 
experiment was in grasses, a line of work 
Mr. Burbank has begun with the promise of 
important results. Indeed, he once carried on 
a series of grass tests, developing a number 
of rare grasses remarkable both for rapidity 
of growth and variety of color, but was 
obliged to discontinue the tests at the time. 
In these tests the possibility of development 
in grasses was clearly proven. 

In the experiment noted above, the tiny 
inch-high grass was of the same variety as 
the largest plant in the test. While it had 
been growing its inch the other had been 
growing twelve inches, the surface of the 
one plant being fully five hundred times as 

166 



CERTAIN GENERAL FEATURES 

great as that of the companion of the same 
lot of seed. The difference between the two 
was that one was a slow-growing, the other 
a rapid-gi'owing seedling. As in all manner 
of fruit tree and other tree tests the seed- 
lings vary greatly in the rapidity of their 
gro\vi:h, so in the grasses, — the test under 
way was to determine which one of these 
seedlings was the fastest growing and most 
vigorous; from that final selection would 
be made in the development of a better type 
of grass. IMr. Burbank has been studying 
for a long time the question of providing a 
rich, nutritious grass for barren regions. It 
is on this line he has been at work, as well 
as upon the production of lawn grasses 
which will grow much more compact and get 
along with less water than the old types of 
grass. The tests in grasses promise to be of 
exceptional interest and value. 

INIr. Burbank also recognizes a large field 
of operations in the improvement of native 
wild grasses, and even in the ennoblement 
of the weeds themselves. Upon this point 
he says: 

"What occupation can be more delightful 

167 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

than adopting the most promising individual 
from among a race of vile, neglected or- 
phan weeds with settled, hoodlum tenden- 
cies, down-trodden and despised by all, and 
gradually lifting it by breeding and educa- 
tion to a higher sphere; to see it gradually 
change its sprawling habits, its coarse, ill- 
smelling foliage, its insignificant blossoms of 
dull color, to an upright plant with hand- 
some, glossy, fragrant leaves, blossoms of 
every hue, and with a fragrance as pure and 
lasting as could be desired? 

"In the more profound study of the life 
of plants, both domestic and wild, we are 
surprised to see how much they are like 
children. Study their wants, help them to 
what they need, be endlessly patient, be 
honest with them, carefully correcting each 
fault as it appears, and in due time they will 
reward you bountifully for every care and 
attention, and make your heart glad in ob- 
serving the results of your work. Weeds are 
weeds because they are jostled, crowded, 
cropped and trampled upon, scorched by 
fierce heat, starved or perhaps suffering with 
cold, wet feet, tormented by insect pests or 

168 



CERTAIN GENERAL FEATURES 

lack of nourishing food and sunshine. Most 
of them have opportunity for blossoming 
out in luxurious beauty and abundance. A 
few are so fixed in their habits tliat it is 
better to select an individual for adoption 
and improvement from a race which is more 
pliable. This stability of character cannot 
often be known except by careful trial, there- 
fore members from several races at the same 
time may be selected with advantage; the 
most pliable and easily educated one will 
soon make the fact manifest by showing a 
tendency to 'break' or vary slightly or per- 
haps profoundly from the wild state. .^Vny 
variation sliould be at once seized upon and 
numerous seedlings raised from this individ- 
ual. In the next generation one, or several, 
even more marked variations will be almost 
certain to appear; for, when a plant once 
wakes up to the new influences brought to 
bear upon it, the road is opened for endless 
improvement in all directions, and the ope- 
rator finds himself with a wealth of new forms 
which is almost as discouraging to select 
from as, in the first place, it was to induce 
the plant to vary in the least, — now comes 

169 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

the point where the skill of the operator is 
put to the severest test. When a wild plant 
has been induced to change its old habits, 
fixed by ages of uniform environment, it 
needs some one with a steady hand to 
ffuide it into a condition of refinement and 
beauty sufficient to adorn any occasion." 

One of the rarest flowers Mr. Burbank 
has ever produced met a tragic fate. It 
was a most beautiful and delicately tinted 
flower upon a vine of exquisite greenness, 
a vine which would be suited admirably for 
interior decoration or for use in masses 
upon lawns. It was a hybrid mesembryan- 
themum, a plant whose habit is to open its 
beautiful flowers in the sunshine but to close 
them when the dark weather comes on. The 
hybrid, while like its ancestors in some general 
characters, was still unique among flowers, 
and Mr. Burbank set great store by it. One 
morning a workman in the part of the 
grounds where the flower was growing dis- 
covered that every plant, wherever it was 
located — some being in one part of the 
grounds, some in another — had met simul- 
taneous death at the hands of some mys- 

170 



CERTAIN GENERAL FEATURES 

terious enemy, or from some sudden and 
fatal plant illness; but not a clue had been 
left and the loss was a very heavy one. The 
plant could never be reproduced, but fortu- 
nately photographs of it had been made. 

jMany times, however, in the midst of 
the tests, the foes of the insect and animal 
world make open war upon the plants, and 
it would seem sometimes as if with malice 
aforethought. Some particularly valuable 
gladioli were surrounded by a row of ordi- 
nary gladioli in order to tempt the thieving 
gophers, should they appear, to satisfy them- 
selves with the coarser bulbs and thus pre- 
serve the choice ones. The gophers, how- 
ever, were not to be put off in any such 
manner, but passed by the common bulbs 
and destroyed the rare ones, entailing a 
severe loss. Mr. Burbank showed me one day 
a large bed of seedling roses. In one end 
was a heavy grovrth of young plants, in 
the other a space several feet square in 
which there were not over a half dozen tiny 
little plants just peeping up through the 
soil. The plants which had been spared by 
the birds that had swooped down upon the 

171 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

plot in an unguarded moment were not 
specially valuable, but the ones which the 
birds had selected were very rare and the 
test was all but defeated. So was it with 
a new generation of beautiful hybrid lark- 
spurs upon which he had been working for 
a number of years. The plants were in 
beds which have wire screens to protect 
them from the birds, but a workman had 
thoughtlessly left the screen off and the 
birds in a few moments wrought havoc with 
the plants that were more than worth, as 
Mr. Burbank put it, their weight in dia- 
monds. 

There is a constant battle going on against 
these foes of the plants. 



172 



CHAPTER XI 

BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

"V^T^HEN one has come to some apprecia- 
^ ^ tion of the wide extent of INIr. Bur- 
bank's hfe-work among the plants of the 
world, it is not difficult to imagine the flowers 
gathered in delicate array to make known 
their individual needs, praying for aid at the 
hands of one who has never refused them 
service. 

One has length and strength of stem but 
meagerness of blossom, it is longing for more 
beautiful flowers; — ^an answer to its prayer 
comes in the passing of the years and it grows 
on and on until it bears a rare, fragrant 
coronal. One has never been able to hold up 
its head in the presence of its fellows, bearing 
its blossoms on a single side of its stem, a sad, 
top-heavy state; — cannot help be given? As 
swiftly as may be the gift of grace follows, 
and now its blossoms siuTound its stem in 
radiant beauty. Another has never liked its 

173 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

color; it would be red where all the centuries 
it has been golden; a strange little wild beauty 
would change from the royal purple of a king 
to the color of the snows upon the mountains ; 
— and they are transformed as by a miracle. 
A host presses forward from all the ends of 
the earth ; — they are wild, would that they 
might become tame! And lo! they are 
changed; they join the fair company of the 
gardens of the world whose part it is to 
furnish adornment to those still more fair or 
to carry their fragrance to the beds of those 
who lie in pain. 

And so it goes among many hundreds of 
them, each needing something, — beauty, or 
strength, or hardiness, or length of days, — and 
the prayer of all is granted. 

Ah! but there still remains one unsatisfied: 
its longing is the most intense of all. It has 
all that the others have longed for, but it has 
one sad impairment. It has been doomed 
through the centuries to bear a most wretched 
odor, an offense to its fellows, to the world; — 
if it only could be given some sweet scent like 
its dear neighbors! 

This is the hardest request of all. The 

174 



BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

flower has made the greatest demand upon the 
skill and the resources and the commanding 
genius of the friend of all flowers. 

But even this is granted: a new epoch in 
the life of the flowers of the earth has come: 
they need reinain scentless no longer. 

For twenty-five years Mr. Burbank had 
been studying the dahlia before he found a 
way of answering its prayer for relief from its 
offensive odor; now it is to be freed from its 
burden. He has driven out the disagreeable 
odor and, in its place, he has left the fragrance 
of the magnolia. 

The dahlia is a fascinating flower with 
which to work. Year by year as he studied it 
and progressed in its development, making it 
more beautiful, hardier, more interesting in 
shape of blossom, he brought new varieties 
into service from other lands to make use of in 
combination with his own. One of these was 
originally from Mexico, Dahlia Juarezi^ the 
parent of the dahlia now commonly called the 
cactus dahlia, with petals more on the order of 
the chrysanthemum. 

From the imported varieties he has worked 
on with the types of his own creation, all the 

175 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

time building up more beautiful forms. It is 
interesting to note, in passing, that while the 
dahlia seeds which he has sent out to leading 
amateur gardeners in various parts of the 
world are the ones which he has discarded as 
not valuable enough to use in carrying forward 
his experiments, — reserving, of necessity, the 
very best ones for the work in hand, — yet he 
has received enthusiastic letters from those 
wiio have grown flowers from these discarded 
seeds, reciting the triumphs won in prizes and 
premiums at flower shows and county fairs. 

The dahlia, like many another flower, when 
first broken of an old habit of life and led into 
a new one, finds it sometimes hard to persist 
in the new way. Everything is strange. It is 
called upon to do things it never was called 
upon to do before. A million past tendencies 
are at work to keep it in the old paths. So, 
when any new and particularly desirable trait 
is developed, it is often hard to fix it. And in 
the fixing of this trait a thousand things must 
be taken into account, — incidents in its life 
history, peculiarities of environment, methods 
of growth and development, individual char- 
acteristics. 

176 




< 



BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

"To keep track of tlie details of a plant's 
life under change from an old order of things," 
says Mr. Burbank, "and to bear in mind all 
that must be remembered and considered as 
to its life history, — beside this, the classifica- 
tion of the botanists is child's play." 

When the flower which has been changed 
in form or color has been watched through a 
series of years and shows no sign of return to 
its old ways, then it may be left to itself 
to follow out the new order of its changed life. 
It certainly took a long while to make the 
dahlia double, for example, but this is now a 
fixed characteristic with no general reversion 
to the old order. 

It so happened one day, several years ago, 
that ]Mr, Burbank, while in the dahlia proving- 
plots, suddenly noticed one flower which bore 
none of the disagreeable odor characteristic of 
this plant, but, in its place, a faint fragrance, 
elusive, but undeniably sweet. Instantly the 
flower was isolated, and with the most jealous 
care its seeds were saved and planted. 

A problem of immense difficulty w^as before 
him, for of all the qualities of a plant the most 
elusive, the least understandable, the most 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

intangible, the most difficult to get under 
control, is that of odor. A thousand and one 
things interfere to make the problem more 
difficult. The color of the flowers, the shape 
of leaves and petals and stem, these are before 
the eyes and changes in them may be watched 
and recorded from generation to generation, — 
but the perfume, no instrument of man can 
measure or record it : it is the very soul of the 
flower. 

Nevertheless, the more difficult the problem 
the greater his zest for entering upon it, the 
deeper his delight in the final solution. 

New plants raised from the seeds of tliis 
scented dahlia showed a variety of answers to 
the problem. Some had scarcely, if any, odor, 
and that not pleasant; some persisted in the 
full measure of the old disagreeable trait; a 
very few had some hint of the perfume of 
the rich magnolia blossom. All but the latter 
were at once put to death as unworthy to live 
in the test to follow. 

Again the seeds were planted and again the 
plants were rigidly selected ; and so it went on 
through generations until, one day, there came 
forth a plant with the full, sweet fragrance of 

178 



BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

the magnolia while still retaining all its other 
good qualities; and then he knew that the 
battle was won. It might be long until the 
perfumed dahlia was fully fixed, and longer 
yet to introduce the new flower to the world, 
but the chief object had been reached,- — the 
offensive odor had been driven out and in its 
place had been established a rare and lasting 
perfume: it was the working of a modern 
miracle. 

"It is not so difficult," Mr. Burbank says of 
the new scented dahlia, "to teach a plant to 
transmit other characteristics, and, once its 
new traits have been fixed, it has no difficulty 
in keeping on in the new way. When the 
dahlia once learned to be double, for example, 
and had had a term of years in which to fix 
itself in this new form, it was easy enough to 
go onward in the same way. But it was a new 
thing for the dahlia to change its odor, it took 
a long time for it to get used to it. All its life 
habits through thousands of generations had 
to be broken up. It was its lifelong habit to 
bear a disagreeable odor. It was no ordinary 
thing in its life to make the change; it could 
not easily give up its old ways. At first, prob- 

179 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

ably not one out of a thousand seeds produced 
a flower with any fragrance. It is far easier 
for a flower to rebel and throw off a new per- 
fume than it is for it to discard some other 
characteristic which it has been led to adopt." 

Now that the solution of the problem has 
been reached, it is only the question of the 
necessary time for the conversion of the entire 
dahlia family to fragrance. 

To change an ill odor into a delightful one 
is one of the most remarkable of Mr. Bur- 
bank's achievements in breeding for perfume, 
but to give a flower fragrance where none 
before existed, this is a still more difficult task. 

For years he has been at work perfecting a 
heretofore scentless verbena, increasing it in 
size and beauty of blossoms and giving it a 
more commanding place among the flowers of 
the world. In the evening of a summer day, 
while he was walking in the plots set apart for 
the testing of the verbenas, a faint odor came 
up to him on the soft night air. It was so 
curious a thing, coming from a bed of flowers 
before bearing no fragrance, that he instantly 
began a search in the bed for the plant whose 
blossom had shown this strange scent. 

180 



I 



BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

The search was iiiiavaihng, however, and a 
year passed by. Again, in the dusk of just such 
an evening, he happened to be near the ver- 
benas, and again the ghost of an odor came 
upward. This time he was not to be denied, 
and he did not leave the task until he had 
crept on hands and knees through the verbena 
beds, discovering, at last, the plant with the 
subtle fragrance, the faint sweet suggestion of 
the trailing arbutus, when it comes up in fair, 
pink beauty through the white snows of the 
North. 

The plant was at once isolated and then 
began a rigid selection of plants from its seeds, 
following the same process observed in the 
dahlia. Year by year the work of selection 
went on with the utmost care and patience, 
and year by year the plants showed stronger 
and gradually stronger traces of the mother 
odor. At last the fragrance was fixed, greatly 
intensified in power, so that now it is double 
the strength of the trailing arbutus and identi- 
cal with it. The flowers that were scentless 
have been given a powerful perfume, so firmly 
established that it will not fade. 

It occurred to IVlr. Burbank one day that it 

181 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

would be interesting to give an odor to a ealla 
upon which he was working. Very carefully 
the plants under test were studied, and at last 
one was found which bore simis of beinof a 
desirable one to use in furthering the experi- 
ment. Work was at once begun on it. After 
years of study and labor he has bred into a 
scentless calla the odor of the Parma violet, 
the rarest of violet odors. 

One of the many strange incidents occurring 
all through the work which JNIr. Burbank 
carries on developed while some of the lily 
tests were under way. One curious lily had 
gone backward into a sad state of total 
depravity, as far as fragrance is concerned. It 
gave forth an odor so powerfully repugnant 
that the people living in a cottage on the 
grounds at Sebastopol near the lily bed, found 
it impossible to endure it. One day before the 
bed was destroyed, IVIr. Burbank was sitting 
in the sunshine after his luncheon watching a 
huge buzzard soaring in the blue sky. Sud- 
denly the bird paused in its sweep, poised an 
instant, and then shot down into the bed of 
lilies. It floundered around an instant in the 
bed and then, with, as Mr. Burbank expressed 

182 



BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

it, the most disgusted look on a bird's face 
he ever saw, flew away. While it has long 
been a mooted question with naturalists 
as to whether or not the buzzards, vultures 
and other birds of prey of their class, see, or 
smell, the carrion which is their delight, the 
view now held by many leading men is that 
they depend wholly upon their sight, while 
Mr. Burbank's experience with his outcast 
lilies proved in this instance the opposite. 

To breed flowers for a certain quality, — 
beauty, endurance, longevity, hardiness, — this 
is immensely difficult. It is immeasurably 
more difficult to breed them for the produc- 
tion of perfume, their subtlest element. Now 
that JNIr. Burbank has demonstrated that 
flowers may be bred for perfume, that odors 
may be changed, that scentless flowers may 
be given fragrance, much work remains for 
others. It is incredible, the amount of work 
he has accomplished. He has still larger 
work before him than any he has ever 
attempted, and, of necessity, very much that 
he has under way must be carried forward, as 
to details, by others. He is never more 
gi'atified than when some one else can take 

183 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

up work which he has begun but which he has 
not the time to complete, and carry it forward 
for the adornment or the material welfare of 
the world. 

There is ample opportunity in the breeding 
of perfumes, as in other departments of his 
work, for others to go forward in the develop- 
ment of the more practical side. In all the 
initial experiments, however, this practical side 
is never lost to sight. He has a poet's love for 
beauty and he has rare delight in adding to 
the charm of the world, but he bears along 
with this the intense practical nature of the 
shrewdest captain of industry. It is a cardi- 
nal principle of Mr. Burbank's never to make 
a new creation without developing, so far as 
possible, its practical value. 

Speaking of the making of a blue rose, — he 
has already made a blue poppy, — he said that 
it was one of the easiest things in the world if 
one should set out diligently upon it, but it 
would consume very much time in the making 
and it would be doubtful, after all, if it added 
much to the charm of this rare flower. He has 
studied the rose with great care, and he has 
seen in the consideration of its coloring an 

184 



BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

easy avenue to a land of blue roses. A lesser 
man would have hastened forward on the 
road that lead to this strange floral wonder; 
but, despite the novelty and the fascination 
that always surround the development of a 
new creation, he would not enter in upon it 
when so many greater and more valuable 
things for the advancement of the world lay 
before him. 

So everything that he does must have, 
if possible, a definite practical end in view, 
— it must help the world along. 

So in the breeding of flowers for perfume, 
the paramount thing, from the practical 
point of view, is to breed the perfume so 
that it will have a direct, commercial bear- 
infy. IMi*. Burbank has demonstrated the com- 
plete pliability of flowers not only in the 
way of color and structure but in the 
way of odor. It now becomes practicable to 
take a strain of roses, for example, which 
are prolific and hardy but with little or no 
odor, and breed into them the most power- 
ful of perfumes. It now becomes possible 
to take a flower having a perfume not par- 
ticularly agreeable, — indeed, one positively 

185 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

disagreeable, — and make its odor a delight. 
It is also possible to combine flowers of 
different odors and produce others unknown 
to the world before. 

But, in addition to all this, it is possible, 
following in Mr. Burbank's lead, to breed 
flowers with the requisite amount of vola- 
tile oil, as it is called, the oil of the plant 
which enables it to hold its rare sweet scent 
and from which, when taken from the flower, 
the perfume is obtained. There are several 
processes for obtaining the perfume from 
flowers, but their aim is identical, — to iso- 
late and confine the odor in some form of 
fat or oil and then dilute it with alcohol into 
the perfumes we buy at the chemists. 

Breeding corn, for example, so that it 
shall have a certain prescribed amount of 
fat has been accomplished and made prac- 
ticable. Indeed, so completely successful is 
this breeding that corns are prepared with 
a given per cent of fat for animal or human 
food, another per cent for the manufac- 
turer of glucose who wants little fat in his 
corn, another for the manufacturer of corn- 
oil who wants much fat and little starch. 

186 



BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

So with flowers; it is entirely feasible to 
breed a flower so that it shall have a given 
amount of volatile oil, selecting through 
generations those flowers which show increas- 
ing amounts of this substance, — determined 
by analysis, — and by rigid selection and ex- 
clusion developing those, as in the corn, 
which have in their composition the requi- 
site amount of oil for conserving the per- 
fume. It is not always the flower with the 
most powerful fragrance that is convertible 
into the largest amount of perfume, but 
the valuable one is that which carries the 
perfume most completely in its oil. The 
odor depends, too, quite frequently upon the 
quality rather than the quantity of this oil. 

Given, then, a flower needing more fra- 
grance, one having no odor but in which it 
is desirable that an odor shall be placed, 
one with a disagreeable odor needing change, 
or one calling for a certain per cent of 
essential oil to mask its fragrance and aid 
in converting it into perfume, — they are all 
to be made over to order. 

In the mountains of Bulgaria, where the 
attar of roses reaches its height of produc- 

187 



1 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

tion, an hectare of ground, — 2.47 acres, — 
planted to red roses from which the per- 
fume chiefly comes, yields 6,600 pounds of 
roses in a season. When the perfume is ex- 
tracted there remain 2.2 pounds of rose attar. 
This sells on the Enghsh market at from 
twenty to thirty shillings per ounce, about 
$7.50, which is $300 gross income for the 
hectare of ground. 

Mr. Burbank says that there is no region 
of the world better adapted for the raising 
of roses, as well as nearly every other kind 
of perfume-bearing flower, than California, 
and that other regions of the United States 
can produce abundantly many kinds of 
flowers suited for the manufacture of per- 
fumes. At the present time this country con- 
sumes about eight millions of dollars' worth 
of perfumes a year. The manufacturing of 
perfumes in the United States has rapidly 
increased. This manufacture is from pomades 
or oils containing the scent, and these are 
made in foreign countries. Now and again 
sporadic attempts at the extraction of per- 
fume have been made in this country, notably 
in the case of orange blossoms, but the 

188 



BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

amount so produced is as nothing compared 
with the amount necessary for manufacturing 
in the United States. 

It has been held by some manufacturers 
that the initial work of producing perfumery 
could not be carried on successfully in the 
United States because of the cheapness of the 
labor of foreign countries. On this point one 
of the chief manufacturers of perfume in the 
country says that one of the main reasons why 
perfumery is not extracted in this country is 
rather because people pay so much attention 
to large things in agriculture, — thousand-acre 
farms and the like, when, in reality, far more 
money could be made along intensive lines; 
as, for example, in the line of perfumery pro- 
duction. When told of the work of Mr. Bur- 
bank in the breeding of flowers for perfume, 
he expressed the liveliest interest and amaze- 
ment, — it was a revelation to him of the 
possibilities of his own occupation. 

Doubtless, this manufacturer stands for 
others in his belief that the production of 
perfumery in this country, — the basic pomades 
from the flowers themselves, — has never yet 
been attempted on a large enough scale. The 

189 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

manufacturer was deeply interested, also, in 
the fact that through breeding and selection 
the odor in a given flower may be doubled, or 
even quadrupled, as well as improved in 
quality. 

Some perfumes of much commercial value, 
as well as of intense pleasure to those who use 
them, are manufactured wholly from the 
leaves of plants, and the possibilities in this 
direction are seen in the new tree which 
Mr. Burbank has created, the fast -growing 
walnut referred to in a preceding chapter. 
The leaves of this tree, which are very abun- 
dant, have a most delightful fragrance. While 
the wood of the tree will furnish fuel and 
material for furniture manufacture in greater 
abundance, considering time of growth, than 
any other tree outside the tropics, the leaves 
may be made available for the production of 
a rare perfume, — a commercial combination 
at once distinctive and of far-reaching sig- 
nificance. 

With facilities in the way of climate and 
soil such as no other nation possesses, and 
with a native stock to work upon through the 
labor of Mr. Burbank, unlike anything before 

190 



BREEDING FOR PERFUME 

known, the production of this delightful 
adjunct of the world's pleasure becomes a 
new source of national wealth. 

In this line of Mr. Burbank's life-work, as 
in hundreds of others, the remarkable acts 
accomplished are only a part of the complete 
achievement. Sometimes he has had time to 
carry forward the work to full commercial 
ends, but, as the work of his life so magnifi- 
cently enlarges, much in the way of detail 
must be done by other hands. He has blazed 
a central way up through the Unknown, and 
he has posted signboards at a thousand ave- 
nues along the way, telling how this one may 
be followed to practical success, how that one 
must be shunned because it leads to failure, 
how the next road will lead on and on to an 
open field where harvests of grace, beauty and 
strength may be reaped. 



191 



CHAPTER XII 

HARDENING AND ADAPTATION 

"ITTERY early in his business career as a nur- 
^ seryman two facts became apparent to 
Mr. Burbank: — First, that there were many 
fruit-growers who paid but httle attention to 
the selection of stock suited to their climate, 
having the impression that one fruit tree of 
a given type was as good as another; and, 
second, that there was a great work to be 
done in adapting fruits to climates, in aiding 
Nature to do what she had been unable to 
do herself. 

With this in view, he set out upon an 
exhaustive study of the chief fruit trees, — not 
merely a study of them from the botanical 
point of view but, so to use the word, from a 
physiological point, to ascertain their full phy- 
sical characteristics. In so doing he was able to 
find out precisely what was lacking in a given 
tree in a given climate and to lead that tree 
into a closer articulation with its surroundings. 

192 



HARDENING AND ADAPTATION 

The problems that arose in this hne of work 
were among the most difficult he had ever 
encountered. Very much had to be taken into 
account, — the past of the tree, not only imme- 
diate but remote, its failures and successes 
under different environment influences, its 
limitations, its need of new blood by crossing 
or the restoration of its depleted veins through 
selection. For JMr. Burbank had come to look 
upon all plant life as being very closely allied 
to the life of man, open to many similar 
attacks, subject to many diseases, needing the 
keen eye of the physician and the dietarian, 
responding to heat and cold, light and shadow, 
inactivity and exercise. He early recognized, 
too, the importance of transference, the intro- 
duction of a fruit from a distant quarter of the 
globe, engrafting its life upon the life which 
was not coming up to its opportunities. He 
recognized that that which holds true in the 
human race, — that admixture of blood is desir- 
able, indeed is imperative at intervals, in order 
to prevent such physical decadence as follows 
the intermarrying of royal families, — held 
true sometimes in the vegetable world; there 
were certain families that needed new blood 

193 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

from a different quarter in order to restore 
their slowly ebbing virility. 

An illustration of this was seen in the case 
of trees which would not withstand frost. He 
took into account large areas of land generally 
in varying strips running down along the 
Atlantic seaboard, on by the Gulf of Mexico 
and even up along the California coast, where 
certain fruits, as the peach, nectarine and 
plum, became problematical crops because of 
the early frosts in the spring. By breeding 
and selection, choosing for combination fruits 
from a far colder climate, he produced fruit 
trees of this type that will withstand absolute 
freezing in bud, in flower, in infant fruit. 
Even when the petals of the flower are stiff* 
with ice, they show no signs of wilting when 
the sun has thawed them out. To make assur- 
ance doubly sure, the trees were placed in 
localities where heavy frosts came early, and 
they splendidly withstood the freezing. 

The value of this work to the world is not 
within estimate. The proximity of the sea- 
coast regions mentioned to city markets, ren- 
dering the production of such fruits at a very 
early date in the spring a matter of direct 

194 



HARDENING AND ADAPTATION 

financial importance to growers, is a feature 
not less significant than the satisfaction of 
fruit-lovers in these regions at being able to 
procure niucli prized Ijut heretofore unobtain- 
able supplies near at hand. 

But hardening a plant does not by any 
means, in Mr. Burbank's use of the word, mean 
hardening against cold alone. It may be har- 
dening against heat, against the wind, against 
rain, against drought, diseases or insects. 

A most interesting demonstration of the 
possibilities in these directions was in the case 
of the gladioli. In California, and in any 
warm climate with a rich soil below their feet, 
the old-fashioned gladioli grew rank and tall, 
and, in case there \vas, in their blooming sea- 
son, considerable wind, they were more than 
apt to be injured or wholly destroyed. So he 
bred gladioli to withstand wind. Where the 
stems were from five to six feet tall he bred 
them down to three feet, at the same time 
making the stalk much thicker and stronger. 
This was done by crossing and selection, 
always choosing those plants which were ap- 
proaching nearest the end desired until the 
required length and strength were attained. 

195 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

Another difficulty with the gladioH was that 
the petals were so thin and fragile they would 
not stand the California sun, so he bred with 
this end in view, producing flowers at last that 
were thick of petal and able to withstand the 
heat of the warmest day. In order to accom- 
plish the ends desired, thousands upon thou- 
sands of seedlings were grown and crossed and 
re-crossed in many blendings. 

While this work was in progress, he set 
about another feature which may be men- 
tioned here incidentally, the teaching of the 
gladioli to bloom around their entire stem 
instead of on one side, as had been their life- 
long habit. After long years of selection, he 
produced gladioli which have the hyacinth 
form instead of the old top-heavy form bloom- 
ing on but one side of the stem. The new 
flower stands erect, with all its blossoms evenly 
distributed upon its stem. At the same time 
he greatly increased the flower in size and in 
beauty, giving many new notes in the scheme 
of color. 

I saw Mr. Burbank one day walking among 
a number of his men as they were working on 
the proving grounds at Sebastopol. They 

196 



HARDENING AND ADAFIATION 

happened to be setting out tiny plants, new 
types of berries under test. The long rows 
were clearly outlined in the earth, stretching 
like tiny green threads across an acre or two 
of ground. The plants were set out just as 
they came from the little square boxes in 
which they had been raised from the seeds, 
thousands of them being put out, and as Mr. 
Burbank came to one of the workmen he said: 

"If I only knew which one of all these 
thousands is the one I want, you wouldn't 
need to set out any of the rest." 

So in all the work of hardening and adapt- 
ing, if he only knew precisely which ones to 
cross to produce the results in the shortest 
possible time, how great would be the saving! 
But there are few laws to guide when a new 
creation in the plant world is to be made, and 
none which will anticipate the end. Bending 
over a path one day as we were walking 
through the grounds, he drew a long line in 
the earth. Then he drew cross lines at 
intervals. 

"There is the scheme," he said. "That long 
line represents the life of the plant through all 
its past history. This cross line represents a 

197 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

break, a sudden, sharp break in its life. I have 
introduced a new element into the old life. I 
have broken it up. Henceforth if I keep on 
breeding and selecting from this new line the 
old life can never be quite the same again. If 
the fruit tree, for example, has been for all its 
history growing in a certain climate under 
certain practically unvarying conditions of 
moisture, heat and cold, it must be abruptly 
changed in order that it shall accommodate 
itself to new degrees of heat or cold or 
different amounts of moisture. To what 
distance I shall carry the plant along its new 
line depends upon how soon it achieves, and is 
fixed in, the life I wish it to assume. Very 
many theories have been held based upon 
carrying a plant a certain distance. When the 
point was reached where the plant appeared to 
refuse to go any further, the conclusion has 
usually been that this ends it all. This is 
by no means the case. Plants are sometimes 
stubborn and need discipline. It is utterly 
impossible to say that a plant can have only a 
certain number of leaves, or a certain number 
of seed-capsules or a certain number cf certain 
other characters. The trouble is that men have 

198 



HARDENING AND ADAPTATION 

not gone far enough, have stopped when appa- 
rently there was no other outcome, but when 
they were, in reahty, only at the beginning, or, 
at best, in the middle, of their difficulties. It 
is hard work, — it takes time, it takes patience, 
it takes persistence, to go on beyond, but is it 
not worth it? 

"Now and then the limit appears to be 
passed and the theorist says, 'Ah, but this 
is only an abnormality, a monstrosity.' Yes, 
but is it? How does he know it is? How 
does he know but that the very abnormality 
may not be followed and helped and developed 
until it becomes a splendid norm, reproducing 
it again and again and again, strengthening it 
where necessary, but all the time pressing it 
forward and finally fixing it? How many 
normalities have we now in plant life that 
were not, in one sense, once abnormalities? 

"In hardening a plant from cold, it is 
generally best to select for stock upon which 
to work those plants which have naturally 
the hardiest bulbs, the hardiest leaves, and the 
hardiest wood, — generally, I say, though not 
always. An arctic plant which may have all 
these characteristics may prove very valuable 

199 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

for blending with a plant long accustomed 
to the warmer portions of the temperate zone. 
Then, by uniting this arctic plant with the 
temperate zone plant, I reach a plant which is 
of the right frost resistance to be grown in the 
colder parts of the temperate zones, and thus 
are made possible these frost-resisting fruit trees 
which will bear stiff freezing without harm. 
Another plant may be troubled with cold, wet 
feet — it needs hardening so that it will grow 
satisfactorily in a soil that may be wet. So it 
must be bred against this. One of the arctic 
plants, for example, which has never grown in 
the temperate zone may be a very desirable 
plant to introduce, but it has never been used 
to a warm, early spring and it begins its 
budding and blossoming so early that it fails to 
accomplish what it should in fruit or flower 
productions. So it is necessary to breed it in 
turn to temperate climate conditions. 

" Cross a hardy plant and a tender plant 
and often the tendency is toward the hardy; 
the waves, so to speak, sweep ever up toward 
the hardy, to the highest limits of the hardy, 
and some few sweep up over; — it is these few 
we must catch and make use of, for, on an 

200 



HARDENING AND ADAPTATION 

average, the waves will go no higher than the 
point of greatest hardiness. Thus, as the work 
progresses, the plants which now and then 
show peculiar hardiness beyond the normal are 
chosen to carry forward the tests. From these 
very hardiest ones, after long breeding and 
selection come the ones which are not only to 
unite the desirable qualities of their forbears 
but which are to be fitted for their new envir- 
onment." 

But in addition to hardening plants against 
all these — sun and ice and drought and rain, — 
they must be hardened for shipping and allied 
purposes. INIr. Burbank may have a fruit, for 
example, which matures early, is of a very 
desirable character aud would sell well at a 
long distance from its point of production. But 
it is too soft — it will not stand shipment. So 
he puts it through a long course of training, so 
to speak, and, when he is through with it, it will 
bear the long shipment and come out at the 
end of the journey as fine as when it started. 

In the production of the prune, the outer 
skin has an important bearing upon the suc- 
cess of the industry. After the prunes have 
been gathered and graded in size, they are 

201 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

dipped in a weak solution of lye, in order to 
thin and crack the skin, to enable the mois- 
ture easily to escape when the drying process 
comes, thus preventing fermentation. After 
they are dipped they are placed in the sun to 
dry or, in regions where there is not sufficient 
sunshine, in machine driers. Some prunes have 
so thick a skin that they require far too much 
lye treatment, some are so thin that they 
burst open under the treatment and are thus 
destroyed for regular prune packing. Mr. 
Burbank has obviated this difficulty by breed- 
ing a prune with a skin so delicately veined 
and so susceptible to the solution tliat it needs 
but a trifling dipping to crack in fine thread- 
like lines and thus permit the escape of the 
moisture. This new prune, by thus having 
its skin bred to precisely the right thickness, 
must supplant other prunes, either too thick 
or too thin or too variable. 

The extension of this line of Mr. Burbank's 
work is practically limitless. DeVries, the 
Dutch botanist elsewhere referred to, com- 
menting upon the extensive work of Mr 
Burbank, says: 

" SpeciaUzation with him is not the limit- 

202 



HARDENING AND ADAPTATION 

ing of the number of genuses and species, but 
in the analogous method to which he submits 
all of them. And so this method is by him 
carried to the highest degree of perfection, 
while at the same time the results are so im- 
mense that they receive the admiration of the 
whole world. His plums and prunes, adapted 
for canning and drying, have a quality and a 
productiveness such that, in spite of the cost 
of preparation and the expense of transporta- 
tion, they are competing with splendid success 
in Europe with the kinds there cultivated and 
are a source of revenue for large stretches of 
country, which they carry up to a hitherto 
unknown state of prosperity. The production 
of such varieties, therefore, has the greatest 
direct influence upon the growth and progress 
of agriculture and horticulture. It promises 
work for thousands of people and to the most 
enterprising amongst them it gives a chance 
for the rapid acquisition of wealth." 

This appreciation on the part of one of the 
foremost scientific men m the world is in 
direct line with the appreciation which IVIr. 
Burbank receives in letters from practical 
fruit-OTowers from all over the world. 

o 

203 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

But a singular situation is suggested by the 
possibilities of this adaptation. One of the 
leading fruit-growers of northern California, 
an ardent admirer of Mr. Burbank and largely 
interested in the production of some of his 
new fruits, makes the point that, in spite of 
the great work JNIr. Burbank has done and is 
doing, for the development of fruit-culture in 
California, the supremacy of California as a 
fruit - producing state is eventually to be 
threatened, because of the fact that Mr. Bur- 
bank is adapting so many of the fruits, now 
grown in California extensively, to other 
regions of the country. Thus, if he makes a 
pear so hardy that it will grow in a climate 
where pears have never been grown success- 
fully before, or in like manner hardens a 
peach, a prune, an apricot, a plum or a cherry, 
the fruit-growers of that region will be swift 
to adopt the new fruit. They will at once be 
given an immediate market; their customers 
will be delighted that they can get the choicest 
fruits at their very doors and filled with pride 
that their climate is no longer to be pro- 
nounced inimical to fruit-raising; while a new 
and profitable industry springs into life. 

^04 



HARDENING AND ADAPTATION 

^Ir. Burbank is a loyal Californian, but he 
is also loyal to all the fruit interests of the 
world. From his own catholic point of view 
his mission among men is to do the greatest 
possible good to the greatest possible number 
of the race. 

The following, bearing directly upon tlie 
subject of adaptation of fruits to other regions, 
is the opinion of a practical fruit-grower of 
California : 

" Mr. Burbank is doing for the East in plum 
culture, what Hale and other peach -growers 
have done for the peach crop. He will 
increase it ten-fold, perhaps a hundred-fold, 
and deprive California, to that extent, of a 
market for her plums. California ships mil- 
lions of boxes of plums to the eastern markets 
annually, and the business is highly profitable. 
Now comes Mr. Burbank and creates new 
plums by the dozens, that bear enormously 
and live and thrive equally well in the frozen 
North, the sunny South or the favoring cli- 
mate of California. Is it not possible that the 
California plum market will go the way of the 
peach market after Mr. Burbank's plums shall 
have been sufficiently grown in the East? Of 

205 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

course, this will not worry Mr. Burbank, for 
he is a citizen of the world rather than of Cali- 
fornia. His avowed purpose is 'to make the 
very best fruits and nuts an every-day food for 
all, instead of an occasional luxury for the 
few.' No doubt the world will be benefited, 
although Cahfornia's present favorable position 
in plum culture may be shaken." 



206 



CHAPTER XIII 

ON THE ORIGIN OF NEW SPECIES 

^HOULD a dweller upon some other 
^^ planet where some other sun kisses its 
earth into life come down throu^-h space bear- 
ing a fruit as yet untasted by the world-men, 
it would not be more distinctive, or more deli- 
cious to the taste, than the fruit which Mr. 
Burbank picked one summer day from a tree 
which he had made from three other trees. 
For the fruit which he picked was unlike any 
other fruit which had grown on the earth 
before— it was absolutely new, he had accom- 
plished that which men had said was impos- 
sible. So it has been said on other occasions, 
— such and such things cannot be done. INIr. 
Burbank says. Wait; let us see about it. 

He took a wild American plum, a Japanese 
plum, and an apricot. He bred these three 
together and made a third, the plumcot, dif- 
ferent in texture, color and taste from any 
other fruit. Not only did he thus create a 

207 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

new fruit, adding much to the dietary of the 
nations, but in this, and a number of similar 
instances, he has opened the way to an indefi- 
nite extension of the same principle — the crea- 
tion of fruits which shall supplant or supple- 
ment old ones. Indeed there are now opened 
in many lines of plant life, by this demonstra- 
tion of the feasibility of creating new species, 
possibilities whose scope is limitless. 

The plumcot by some miglit still be pro- 
nounced only a variation or combination of 
similar species, — though, as will be seen later, 
even this objection will not lie against the 
primus berry and the phenomenal berry. And 
yet, when two such absolutely different, even 
if allied, fruits as the plum and the apricot 
are bred together, producing a third and abso- 
lutely new fruit, it is quite difficult to see 
wherein this is not a new and distinct species. 

This new fruit is not only delightful to the 
taste but it is very interesting in its character. 
Sometimes the flesh will be yellow, sometimes 
pink, sometimes white or crimson. Sometimes 
it has pits like the apricot, sometimes like the 
plum. The fruit is highly colored, maintain- 
ing the prevailing hues of the apricot. The 

208 




■■*- p 









ON THE ORIGIN OF NEW SPECIES 

flavor of the new fruit is indescribable, as 
unique as it is delicious. 

The new fruit was produced in the usual 
way, the three basic fruits being inter-pol- 
lenated so that there was a thorough blending 
or crossing of them all. Then selection was 
made from the crosses until at length, after 
years had elapsed, after prolonged and most 
patient testing, the new fruit was produced. 
There yet remains further work upon it before 
it shall be given to the world, but its place 
in the world as a new and distinct type of 
fruit life is now assured. ]Mr. Burbank began 
this particular experiment in another line, the 
crossing of a plum and an almond; then 
branching off into the plum-apricot line as 
promising more satisfactory results. The plum 
and the almond combined in a sense, produc- 
ing some spectacular plant effects, but the 
union did not promise results worthy of 
further work, so it was dropped. 

Other curious combinations have from time 
to time been made, with results not yet fully 
determined in some cases. A raspberry and a 
strawberry were united. Strange results devel- 
oped. The plants were curious indeed. The 

209 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

plants were entirely thornless, absolutely and 
invariably persisting in the strawberry charac- 
teristics. They bore leaves, but instead of 
having raspberry leaves, as would be natural 
to go with their long stems, the leaves were 
all trifohate, a regular strawberry leaf. Under 
ground, the plant sent out long branches, or 
stolons, precisely as the strawberry plant sends 
them out above ground. These stolons bore 
plants, and when they came up they took on 
the length of stem of the raspberry parent, 
growing from three to five feet in height. 
Flowers came in great abundance, three or 
four times as many as the raspberry, seven or 
eight times as many as the strawberry. But 
the plant was foredoomed, for it bore no fruit. 
Flowers came in abundance, indeed, lived their 
allotted time, and dropped to the ground, but 
the only fruit, or approach to a fruit was a 
little knob where the fruit should have been, 
a very travesty of a berry. Hundreds of these 
plants were grown. 

An apple was crossed with a blackberry. 
The plant which followed was apple so far as 
foliage and general character were concerned, 
although in the thickness and general charac- 

210 



ON THE ORIGIN OF NEW SPECIES 

ter of the leaves the blackberry influence was 
unmistakably apparent. Strangely enough, 
the blackberry seeds which came from the 
cross produced the apple-tree growth. Four 
to five thousand trees were thus grown, all 
practically identical in character. All but two 
of the cross refused to fruit, though almost all 
of them blossomed abundantly. Some of the 
blossoms were rose-colored like the apple, 
some of them almost crimson. Nearly all 
were thornless. 

A black raspberry was crossed with a black- 
berry, with the result that most of the product 
of the union died just as fruit-bearing time 
came on. IMany hybrids, ]Mr. Burbank notes, 
die when it comes to the age of reproduction 
because, for one or another reason, the stamina 
of the parents is exhausted and the act of 
fruit production proves too great a strain. 
The mountain ash and the blackberry were 
also crossed, resulting in a salmon-colored 
fruit, the bush bearing no thorns. IMany com- 
binations of peaches and almonds have been 
made, further tests in this combination now 
being under way. In the proving grounds at 
Sebastopol there stands a row of these peach- 

211 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

almond crosses, raised from seeds. The great 
difference between seedlings is shown in this 
row. One peach-almond tree is six to seven 
inches in diameter at the base, with branches 
running from two to four inches thick where 
they leave the trunk. The tree is perhaps 
twenty feet high, with a large spread of 
branches. Directly alongside are several peach 
seedlings of the same age. Their trunks are 
not thicker than the branches of the other tree 
and they are not over six feet in height. They 
are poor and scant of foliage as compared with 
the others. The peach-almond combination 
generally produces a pit-nut, so to call it, 
which has the outside character of a peach pit, 
and inside the thin inner shell of the almond. 
Sometimes the flesh of the hybrid fruit that 
has come from the cross has been too thin, 
sometimes there has been too much stone. 
The final results of this cross will be looked 
for with great interest. 

INIany other combinations have been made. 
No one may tell what inter-combination of 
these crosses might have accomplished if the 
breeding and selection had been pushed fur- 
ther. But when JNIr. Burbank finds that a 

212 



ON THE ORIGIN OF NEW SPECIES 

union of two diverse fruits does not within a 
reasonable time satisfactorily respond, he drops 
it, even though it may hold out ultimate pos- 
sibilities. 

But important from a scientific and practi- 
cal point of view as the plumcot is, it is over- 
shadowed in scientific interest, in a sense, by 
the "Primus" berry. This was an absolutely 
new^ species of fruit, the first known recorded 
species directly created by man. The primus 
berry was made from the native California 
dewberry and a Siberian raspberry. The two 
were crossed by pollenation for the purpose of 
developing, if possible, a distinct new fruit. 
Seedlings raised from Primus always pro- 
duced true like a wild species, even so that if 
found wild all botanists everywhere would 
classify it as a true species. In general very 
many species are drawn upon. For example, 
he has worked upon over forty different black- 
berries gathered from all over the world to 
produce from among their many crosses new 
hybrid t}^es which should be better in various 
ways than any of the ancestors, — larger, finer 
of flavor, more beautiful, better to ship. But 
in this particular test though difficult problems 

213 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

were met he kept up the work thus to the end. 
The merging of the dewberry and the Siberian 
raspberry was complete. The fruit was unhke 
either parent in form, color and taste. There 
were no abnormalities. The flowering was 
fine, the fruitage large and natural, the foliage 
normal, the persistence absolute. Several 
years were allowed to elapse before the new 
fruit was put upon the market, in order to fix 
its new life habits, to make sure that it did 
not break away or return to some of its old 
ways. The flavor of the berry was neither that 
of the dewberry nor the raspberry, it was 
unique and most delightful to the taste of 
most people. It ripened its main crop at the 
same time with the strawberries and continued 
to bear more or less all summer. Its fruit 
ripened long before most of the standard, weU- 
known kinds of raspberries and blackberries 
had begun to bloom. 

One curious feature of the new fruit, and 
one which seems specially significant, was that 
nearly all the other seedlings which grew from 
the same cross were absolutely barren. They 
blossomed abundantly and the blossoms of 
many plants seemed perfect, but Nature 

214 



ON THE ORIGIN OF NEW SPECIES 

refused to grant fruitage to any of them. 
Strangely enough, too, the new berry upon 
which Nature bestowed its favor ripens its 
fruit several weeks earlier than either parent 
and excels both in productiveness. 

In planting over five thousand seeds of the 
new berry, every one produced a priinus berry, 
with such slight variations as may be observed 
in seedlings of any other fixed species. This 
added the last needed proof, if other proof 
were necessary, showing that amalgamation 
had been complete. 

By all scientific rules and tests, as well as by 
the canons of common sense, the primus berry 
takes its place with the plumcot and the phe- 
nomenal berry as distinct new creations. It 
should be noted, however, that not every plum- 
cot seed planted produces a plumcot, thus fix- 
ing it also as distinct. Some shghtly incline to 
one parent, some to the other, as not enough 
time has elapsed completely to fix the type. 

After the creation of the primus berry came 
that of the Phenomenal berry, in itself as won- 
derful as either the plumcot or the primus 
berry. It was the result of the union of the 
California wild dewberry and the Cuthbert 

215 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

raspberry, a complete cross, producing an 
absolutely new berry, larger than the largest 
berry ever before known. Each plant produces 
annually eight to ten stalks or canes about 
twelve feet in length. The berries are very 
large, light to dark crimson in color, and 
grow in remarkable profusion. 

Very many other crosses have been made 
with varying results, embracing: 

Peaches and almonds, peach and chicksaw 
plum, almond and Japanese plum, apricot and 
Japanese plum, Chinese quince and common 
quince, quince and crab-apple, Japanese quince 
and apple, potato and tomato, apricot and 
peach, domestic plum and wild goose plum, 
wild crab-apple and common apple, quince and 
apple, nicotiana and petunia, rose and apple, 
hawthorn and blackberry, quince and black- 
berry. 

Speaking of crossing and selection in gen- 
eral, Mr. Burbank says: 

"There is no barrier to obtaining fruits of 
any size, form or flavor desired, and none to 
producing plants and flowers of any form, color 
or fragrance. All that is needed is a knowledge 
to guide our efforts in the right direction, 

216 



ON THE ORIGIN OF NEW SPECIES 

undeviating patience, and cultivated eyes to 
detect variations of values." 

The production of these three new and 
valuable species of fruits is not only of great 
interest and large economic value, but it opens 
the way to an indefinite extension. Here, as 
in many other lines, much work remains to be 
done by other hands. Within certain limita- 
tions there remain vast opportunities for the 
production of other fruits, of grains and grasses 
and trees and all manner of plant life now 
unknown to the world. Not only is novelty 
to be looked for, but important additions to 
man's resources. If a combination of certain 
grains, for example, could be made producing 
a wholly new grain of augmented food supply 
and productivity, the importance of the 
product to the world would be beyond 
estimate. 

Such creations as these Mr. Burbank has 
effected, with many other improvements upon 
old forms of plant life, establish anew the fact 
that the time which has been predicted by 
some pessimistic theorists, when there will be 
too many people on the globe for the produc- 
tivity of the earth, must be set forward so 

217 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

many ages as to leave no further cause for 
even academic apprehension. 

It is of interest to note that, in the progress 
of these and other experiments, Mr. Burbank 
demonstrates the fallacy of another scientific 
statement. It has long been held that, under 
certain conditions, the progeny of a given 
plant union would be affected in a demon- 
strable way by one or the other of the parents, 
the parental life fixing itself in certain positive 
and indelible forms upon the child life. In 
the midst of vast experiments where he has 
had unrivaled opportunities for studying 
every phase of plant life, Mr. Burbank has 
again and again demonstrated that this power, 
prepotency as it is called, simply depends 
upon heredity and that there is no prepotency 
of male or female as such. Other things being 
equal, he says it may be set down as fixed 
that there is absolutely no balance in favor of 
either sex, as sex. Upon this point Mr. Bur- 
bank says: 

" In grafting, every conceivable stage of 
congeniality between stock and graft is found, 
from actual poisoning to refusal to unite; unit- 
ing and not growing; or growing for a short 

218 



ON THE ORIGIN OF NEW SPECIES 

time and dying; or separating where united; or 
bearing one or two crops of fruit and then 
suddenly bhghting; or separating after years of 
growth up to complete congeniality. So it is 
in crossing, — all grades of hybridity are to be 
found. Crossed plants generally have the 
cliaracteristics of both parents combined, yet 
sometimes show their parental influences on 
one side, producing uncertain results in the 
first generation. In the second and succeeding 
generations these cross-bred seedlings usually 
break away into endless forms and combi- 
nations, sometimes reverting to some strange 
ancestral form which existed in the dim past. 
Or the break may not occur until after many 
generations. But when once the old, persist- 
ent type is broken up, the road is open for 
advances in any useful direction. Sometimes 
hybridized or crossed seedlings show consider- 
able, or even great, variation for weeks; or 
they may show no change in foliage or growth 
from one or the other parent form until 
nearly ready to bloom or bear fruit, when 
they suddenly change in foliage, growth, char- 
acter and general appearance." 

This question of the origin of new species 

219 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

has been of absorbing interest to those scien- 
tists who have visited Mr. Burbank. DeVries, 
already referred to, had for years been devel- 
oping the theory of mutation — elsewhere 
noted in connection with Mr. Burbank's theo- 
ries — but when he came to see the wonderful 
results that Mr. Burbank had achieved on so 
great a scale he was impelled to write thus: 

"One of the most marvelous features of 
Burbank's work is the immensity of the num- 
ber of his different seedlings. This is a power- 
ful principle, to reach in a short time such 
very important variations. The rule is: Thou- 
sands of seedlings for each hybrid. . . . Half 
a million lily bulbs, a result of one crossing 
through thrice repeated crossings and selec- 
tions, were entirely destroyed after fifty 
of the best bulbs were selected for further 
culture. And so I might cite all kinds of 
examples. 

"Every one understands that the chance to 
find something good is greater if it can be 
made from several hundred thousand than 
from only a few hundreds. Those who wish 
to compete with Burbank must accept this 
principle, and, if this cannot be done, must 

220 



ON THE ORIGIN OF NEAV SPECIES 

choose a different way or else choose species 
which require or admit a different method. 

"Theoretically, however, it is of great im- 
portance to compare this principle with the 
method of selection generally in vogue in 
Europe, where they do not work upon such a 
large scale. In Europe the preference is given 
to repeated selections, with the idea that the 
desired results may be reached by going the 
regular road. If they wish to increase the size 
of a flower to a stipulated limit, they do not 
sow at one time great quantities, as does Bur- 
bank, but a great deal less and pick out the 
largest to raise from. On the progeny raised 
from that seed the same process is followed, 
and so in four or five years the desired result 
is reached; at least if the desires are limited to 
the possible attainment. 

" The theoretical question now is : By such 
a repeated selection do we proceed faster than 
by a single sowing out upon a much greater 
scale? With five years' labor we have to culti- 
vate so much fewer that the expense would 
thereby be lessened in proportion, but against 
this plan comes the disadvantage very nat- 
urally that the results would only come in so 

221 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

much longer time. ... I would not put the 
question if it were not of so great importance 
in the study of etiology. It is very closely 
connected with the question whether one 
must accept a slowly merging in one another 
of species, or that one produces the other by 
jumps. (The pith of DeVries' Mutationis 
theorie.) In the first place, small deviation 
would increase in the course of the genera- 
tions, and long series of intermediate forms 
would connect the new with the old. In the 
second case, however, the jump would be 
made at once, without any intermediates." 

This was written in California by DeVries 
before he left for his home in Holland, and 
the very night following his visit to Mr. Bur- 
bank. He had long advocated the mutation 
theory earnestly, as elsewhere noted, but in 
the results of Mr. Burbank's vast experiments 
he was confronted with facts he had never 
known before. Hence the following: 

"So long as there were no sufficient 
examples of this manner of change and we had 
to rely upon spontaneous varieties in horti- 
culture, the first proposition was the most 
probable. It rested upon several experiences 

222 



ON THE ORIGIN OF NEW SPECIES 

in horticulture and garden culture in relation 
to the improvement of the species, and it was 
accepted that the species had been produced 
in a similar way. At that time we were 
unacquainted with the results of sowing on 
such a scale as that of Burbank, and we 
imagined that the results could be reached 
only by repeated selections. However, it is 
clear that this view would lose a great deal 
of its meaning if by experiments upon a large 
scale the variability could be reached at once; 
that which we imagined previously could be 
reached only by slow degrees." 

Dr. de Vries again mentions the fact that 
the scale of Mr. Burbank's work excels 
everything that was ever done in the world 
before, and then describes the production by 
Mr. Burbank of the new species above referred 
to, — the primus berry, the first fixed species 
ever recorded made by man. As is noted 
elsewhere, Mr. Burbank has produced the 
mutations or changes which have been consid- 
ered to have such an important scientific 
bearing, at will. 

Now that it has been established, despite the 
dictum of the older scientists, that two variant 

223 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

species may be made to combine and produce 
a new species wholly unknown to the world 
before, who shall predict what may be accom- 
plished for the world along this line? Limit- 
less fields of material progress are thus opened 
for all future plant-breeders, vast possibilities 
for the adornment and the enrichment of the 
earth. If a man deserve lasting credit who 
causes two blades of grass to grow where but 
one grew before, what shall be said of one 
who, beyond all else he has accomphshed, has 
added new life to the vegetable kingdom and 
opened thus a thousand avenues to others? 
New fruits, as yet untasted by man, fruits of 
the vine and the shrub and the tree ; new 
grains, new grasses, new trees, new flowers 
are to appear along the paths he has blazed 
throufifh the regions of the Unknown. 

In the great depths of the ocean, the abyssal 
depths, some miles below the surface, many 
strange forms of life are being brought to light 
by the deep-sea dredging of the biologists. 
Among the lowest forms of life is one where 
animal and vegetable life occupy the same 
house, so to speak, and intermingle in most 
curious fashion. The animal life lives upon 

224) 



ON THE ORIGIN OF NEW SPECIES 

the plant life and the plant life upon the 
animal, each subsisting in certain measure 
upon the waste of the other. It is a compos- 
ite, so to speak, — half animal, half vegetable. 
Looking to the future, and taking into 
account what ]Mr. Burbank has already accom- 
plished in the creation of new life, will it be 
possible, granting the common protoplasmic 
basis of plant and animal life, eventually to 
interblend the two? Such union, should it 
come, must be scarcely more marvelous than 
the union here recorded, effecting creations 
which Nature, in the very amplitude of her 
powers, never could have achieved alone. 



225 



CHAPTER XIV 

HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

TTN a certain negativ^e sense the most wonder- 
*- ful thing about Mr. Burbank's work is that 
there are absolutely no secrets. He is as open 
as a book. He is not only peculiarly frank 
and ingenuous by nature, but he carries the 
same attributes into all conversations that 
arise pertaining to his great lifework. He 
is never happier than when he is doing 
something for some one else. Unselfishness 
fits him as a garment, but there the figure 
must change; for it fills all his life. So 
when it comes to showing others all that can 
well be shown of his work, he is supremely 
happy. 

The unfortunate word "wizard" attached 
itself to him when some of his remarkable 
achievements first became known, a term 
which he has always resented, as he has always 
deprecated those efforts of over - enthusiastic 
friends who have sought to weave strange 

no 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO;— BREEDING 

mysteries about him. The marvel does not 
lie in the methods, but in the man. 

At the same time, there is very much of 
interest in the details of these methods, first, 
because he has practically thrown aside all 
precedent when it in any M^ay conflicted with 
his own judgment; and, second, because he 
has always been not only willing, but anxious, 
that others should know all that he knows, in 
order that the widest possible good might 
come to the world. Not that any one may 
hope to achieve results of similar importance 
merely by adopting his methods,^ — for only 
another such a man will ever do what he has 
done, — but he opens the door and asks any 
one in who has a mind inclined to do service 
to the world. 

Mr. Burbank thus speaks in general terms 
of plant - breeding : 

"The foundation principles of plant -breed- 
ing are simple and may be stated in a few 
words ; the practical application of these prin- 
ciples demands the highest and most refined 
efforts of which the mind of man is capable, 
and no line of mental effort promises more 
for the elevation, advancement, prosperity and 

?27 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

happiness of the whole human race. Plant- 
breeding is the intelligent application of the 
forces of the human mind in guiding the 
inherent life -forces into useful directions by 
crossing to make perturbations or variations 
and new combinations of these forces, and by 
radically changing environments; both of 
which produce somewhat similar results, thus 
giving a broader field for selection, which 
again is simply the persistent application of 
mental force to guide and fix the perturbed 
life -forces in the desired channels. 

" Plant - breeding is in its earliest infancy. 
Its possibilities, and even its fundamental 
principles, are understood but by few. In 
the past it has been mostly dabbling with 
tremendous forces, which have been only 
partially appreciated, and it has yet to ap- 
proach the precision which we expect in the 
handling of steam or electricity. Notwith- 
standing the occasional sneers of the ignorant, 
these silent forces embodied in plant - life have 
yet a part to play in the regeneration of the 
race which, by comparison, will dwarf into 
insignificance the services which steam and 
electricity have so far given. Even un- 

388 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO;— BREEDING 

conscious or half- conscious plant -breeding 
has been one of the greatest forces in the 
elevation of the race. The chemist, the 
mechanic, have, so to speak, domesticated 
some of the forces of Nature, but the plant- 
breeder is now learning to guide even the 
creative forces into new and useful channels 
This knowledge is a priceless legacy, making 
clear the way for some of the greatest benefits 
which man has ever received from any source 
by the study of Nature. 

"The plant - breeder, before making com- 
binations, should with great care select the 
individual plants which seem best adapted to 
his purpose, as by this course many years of 
experiment and much needless expense will 
be avoided. 

"The plant - breeder is an explorer into 
the infinite. He will have no time to make 
money, and his brain must be clear and alert 
in throwing aside fossil ideas and rapidly 
replacing them with hving, throbbing thought 
followed by action. Then, and not till then, 
shall he create marvels of beauty and value in 
new expressions of materialized force, for 
everything of value must be produced by the 

229 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

intelligent application of the forces of Nature 
which are always awaiting our commands. 
The vast possibihties of plant - breeding can 
hardly be estimated. They are not alone for 
one year or for our own time or race, but 
are beneficent legacies for every man, woman 
and child who shall ever inhabit the earth." 

Much of the preliminary work in Mr, 
Burbank's plant - breeding is carried on at 
Santa Rosa, where his home is located. He 
lives here in a small, old-fashioned, two -story 
frame house, with an immaculate front yard 
and four acres of testing -grounds to the rear. 
Near the dwelling is a small greenhouse where 
certain tests are all the time under way, 
particularly those in which the plants require 
forcing in order to hasten the work. In the 
rear of the greenhouse stands his packing- 
house, the upper portion being given up to 
storage. Here are thousands of paper sacks 
and boxes containing all manner of seeds, 
roots and bulbs, many of them in the midst 
of tests, many of them finished products 
priceless in value. 

The open ground in the rear of the house 
and barn is divided off into beds of different 

230 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

sizes. Some of these are perhaps fifty by a 
hundred feet, some four hundred by twenty 
feet; others, enclosed in frame borders, are from 
six to ten feet square. Wire screens are pre- 
pared to be adjusted to these smaller beds in 
order to keep out the birds. Millions upon 
millions of seeds are sown in these plots of 
ground every season, and, from the plants that 
grow, rigid selection is constantly going on. 

Workmen are always to be seen about the 
place, quiet, clear-eyed, intelhgent men, trained 
men, whose hearts are in the work. Every 
morning they take their orders from Mr. Bur- 
bank for the day, and carry them out quietly 
but enthusiastically. No man ever had more 
loyal aids; they are not only attentive to their 
work, but they are devotedly attached to the 
quiet man who goes in and out among them 
all so gently, but who, if occasion demands, can 
give a command no workman would dare 
ignore, or deal out a denunciation of a misde- 
meanor exceeding bitter to the taste. It is 
rare, though, that he ever gives rein to his 
words when satire is in the saddle, but when 
he does, the pace is swift and the rider holds a 
whip of scorpions. 

231 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

The climate of California is particularly fa- 
vorable to his work because of the length of 
seasons in which tests may be carried on, — a 
perpetual season, in fact, for some lines of the 
work. On one day you may see one plot of 
ground filled with a mass of flaming poppies: 
at another tiine it may be white with lilies, or 
it may be crimson with the royal amaryllis or 
blue with larkspurs, or purple with some little 
wild flower — it is never twice alike. When 
one test is ended, the plants are dug up and 
burned and the ground made ready for the 
next experiment. Whenever the soil begins 
to show signs of running low in nutriment, 
fertilizers are used to restore it. But all this is 
taken into account, for the finished plant must 
go to the world equipped for general, normal 
condition of soil and climate. 

As has been noted in the chapter on the 
general methods, breeding and selection are 
the basic facts in all this work. When the 
flowers of a given test are in full blossom the 
work of pollenation begins. For this work, 
when it presents only general problems, Mr. 
Burbank relies almost entirely upon his finger- 
tips. He does not recommend that an ama- 

232 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

teur should so restrict himself, but suggests 
various instruments: A pair of jeweler's for- 
ceps, or pincers, a jeweler's eyeglass, a small 
but powerful microscope, a sharp knife, a saucer 
for holding the pollen, a soft brush for sifting 
or dusting the pollen from the saucer to the 
stigma of the plant to be fertilized. 

Whenever it is necessary, he makes use of 
any or all of these, or of other devices of his 
own making, but chiefly he pollenates by 
securing the pollen upon a watch-crystal and 
placing it upon the stigma with his finger-tips. 
The main object is to see that the pollen from 
the one flower gets onto the stigma of the 
other flower. The fertilizing, or fructifying. 
Nature will do herself if man has done his 
work well. 

Sometimes there are flowers which Nature 
has in her own good ways made extremely 
difficult to poUenate, flowers for which strange 
devices and curious contrivances and traps are 
prepared by Nature in order to get certain in- 
sects, — and only those, — to enter the flower 
at just the right time and there to hold them 
captive until they deposit the pollen they have 
gathered from another flower. Of such plants 

233 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

as these Mr. Burbank makes a very careful 
study, supplementing Nature where necessary, 
tenderly outwitting her, if needs be. Some- 
times he cuts away the petals, stamens and 
sepals entirely, so as to form an unattractive 
and inhospitable place for the insects in order 
that they may be kept out entirely. Strategem 
plays no unimportant part in this work. Now 
and again in order to produce a given result, 
fully nine -tenths of the flower buds will be 
cut away in order to force the other one -tenth 
to produce a stronger development. 

But Mr. Burbank does not recommend any 
difficult problems for the amateur; rather, he 
insists on the very simplest ones to begin with. 
He places confidence, the confidence which 
comes from having accomplished something, 
as the initial essential. Failure, he says, leads 
to disappointment, and disappointment to 
discouragement, and discouragement is own 
cousin to despair. So he says: Confidence 
born of success is imperative in amateur plant- 
breeding. 

And to this end he urges taking up a single 
flower to begin with, never a composite one. 
He recommends for crossing, the sweet peas, 

234 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

geraniums, petunias, Japanese pinks or violets. 
These will do to begin on, though there are 
many others. He recommends for selection 
alone, the pansy and the sweet pea as offering 
opportunities of unusual promise. Of course 
all of the flowers mentioned, and in fact every 
flower whose life is to be changed in any 
respect, must come under the most rigid 
selection, the eternal choosing of the best. 

When a certain flower, say a sweet pea, has 
been decided on, the pollen from one of the 
two that are going to be crossed in order to 
give birth to a third that, it is hoped, shall be 
better than either parent, is gathered upon a 
little saucer or a watch-crystal, taken to the 
flower which has been chosen as a mate, and 
dusted down upon its stigma. Then this latter 
flower should be isolated from its fellows and 
guarded carefully. A paper tag should be 
fastened to it for identification. Mr. Burbank 
says to watch the bees, and when they are first 
a- wing upon their day's work, be sure the 
flowers are ready to be poUenated. 

He says that it is wholly unnecessary in or- 
dinary plant-breeding to attempt to cover the 
flower with a screen of tissue paper or gauze. 

235 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

This method has been followed by some in the 
belief that they were thereby preventing in- 
sects from coming in and destroying the 
pollenating, but he holds that, save in some 
particular cases, the act is not only absurd 
but absolutely harmful and more than likely 
so to injure the flower by keeping light and 
air away from it as to frustrate the very end 
aimed at. If the pollenating has been thorough, 
Nature may safely be left to do the rest. 

Great care also should be exercised in sav- 
ing the seeds of the plants under test. He 
recommends air-tight glass jars for the pur- 
pose. The jars should be kept in some secure 
place — it is beyond the power of any mind to 
say how precious these seeds may prove to be. 

From the plants that grow from the new 
seeds one only should be chosen, the very best 
of all, the one which is the thriftiest, the best 
bearing, the nearest to the ideal. The seeds 
from this one plant should be in turn planted, 
and then from a very few of the very best 
plants enough plants saved out to insure a 
somewhat larger crop for the next generation. 
Then from this larger generation only the 
very best one should be saved. Mr. Burbank 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

lays special stress upon this, — to save only one 
and that tlie very best of all; no matter if 
there be a hundred plants or a thousand, save 
only the very best. 

Naturally one who has been long expert at 
the work will be able easily to choose a good 
many plants of relatively the same value in 
order to secure quicker results as a test pro- 
ceeds ; but, even then, when the final test of 
all comes, there must remain but one as the 
basis of the world's stock. 

So on and on from year to year the work 
should go, the best plant of each succeeding 
generation approaching nearer the end sought 
until, a fruit or flower is produced which 
reaches, which may indeed surpass, the model 
set before the mind. 

One may have, for example, a certain variety 
of sweet peas which is not exactly to one's 
liking, — make them over to suit you. If the 
stems are too long, shorten them. If they are 
too short, lengthen them. If the blossom is 
not large enough, make it larger. If the color 
is pink and you want it red, teach it to take on 
the crimson hue. Pick out beforehand, is Mr. 
Burbank's advice, the particular improvement 

^37 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

you wish. Fix this firmly in your mind, and 
constantly select with this end in view. And 
be not led astray from it by some other inter- 
esting manifestation of the flower ; or, if some- 
thing unusual does develop, side-track this 
for further test, and keep on the main track, 
doing all faithfully, consistently, enthusiasti- 
cally, and the desired end will come. It must 
be ever borne in mind that only those plants 
must be kept which are pressing onward 
toward the ideal. All the rest must be 
destroyed, or else they will be liable to mix 
with the ones under test and thus lower the 
standard. 

Naturally, the more extensive botanical and 
historical knowledge one has of a given plant 
under experiment, the better, — its habits, its 
former environment, its needs as to soil, 
amount of moisture, preference for sunshine or 
shade, and so on, its complete life history. 

For crossing first and then selection, he 
places the violet among one of the very best as 
the flower now offering to the amateur one of 
the finest fields for experimentation. It is 
somewhat more difficult to cross than some of 
the others, but still, with a little patience, may 

238 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

be mastered. He says that remarkable results 
await the plant - breeder in produeing better 
violets — larger, deeper in tone, different in 
color, stronger in perfume. 

A'arieties of pansies are already so numerous 
that he would waste no time in trying to 
make new combinations of them, though they 
offer a fascinating field for selection, in mak- 
ing them larger, more intense in color, more 
velvety in texture. 

Another point on which Mr. Burbank lays 
emphasis is that the beginner should at the 
outset treat one flower alone, not spread out 
too much. Later on, when he has become 
familiar with the work, he may have as many 
varieties under test as he may have time to 
care for; but, at first, deal with but one. 
While the general work is simple in its charac- 
ter, there are always many minor problems 
which will come up for solution, and the more 
numerous the problems the less likeUhood of 
the initial success upon which he places so 
much emphasis, a Httle encouragement at the 
outset is of paramount importance. To be 
able to show your friend a flower which you 
by your own skill and patience have re- 

839 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

created, presenting certain features which this 
particular flower never before j)ossessed, is not 
only something for mutual pleasure but a 
distinct floral triumph. It may be, indeed, 
you have set the pace for the whole world. 
But crossing old plants or creating new ones 
is not child's play. To do it successfully 
requires intelligent effort, the highest judg- 
ment, the soundest common sense, patience of 
no ordinary type. The man who has a small 
plot of ground, — it may be only a few square 
feet of ground in a cooped - up city back yard, 
or, indeed, it may be he is driven to a few feet 
of earth upon his roof for his gardening, — 
usually does not have much spare time for 
such work, even if he has a love for flowers 
and loves to have them upon his table, but 
even this circumscribed man inay accomplish 
some remarkable results. If he has a larger 
garden in the country town or suburb, or if he 
be fortunate enough to be one of that class of 
well-to-do people who are learning in the 
dear school of experience that, with all its 
splendid attractions, the city palace is sur- 
passed in interest by the country estate, by 
so much will the scope be broadened because 

240 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

of larger facilities for carrying on the experi- 
ments. 

For those who have large country places 
and who have ample hothouse facilities, Mr. 
Burbank recommends, for example, for begin- 
ning work under glass, begonias, cinerarias and 
primroses, though there are very many others 
which may be used. These will, however, give 
an opportunity for initial practice in breeding 
and selection likely to bring out satisfactory 
results. Here, too, he would pick out one 
plant and stick to it, following it for a number 
of years if needs be. As the work progresses, 
one's own judgment will be the better guid^ 
as to just how soon to begin work on another 
flower, though the one first chosen should 
constitute the major study. 

Many opportunities are presented, too, for 
vegetable -breeding. In passing, it should be 
borne in mind by those who have a desire to 
combine thrift with pleasure, that no incon- 
siderable increase in income to a man or 
woman of moderate means may come from the 
creation of new and improved forms of floral 
and vegetable life. In order, of course, to 
prepare a new flower or a new vegetable for 

241 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

the market, time enough must be allowed 
thoroughly to test it so that it will not revert 
to some former inferior stage. In general, Mr. 
Burbank says that six or eight generations 
of persistence in a given trait usually are suf- 
ficient to fix that trait, and to warrant one in 
announcing a new flower and offering it for 
sale from one's own gardens or to some of the 
great seedsmen or florists. 

Among the vegetables, potatoes and to- 
matoes are both very easy to work upon, and 
excellent results may be looked for, both in 
the improvement of size, flavor and hardiness. 
Corn of all varieties, though particularly the 
sweet corns, he recommends. Squashes are 
more difficult to cross satisfactorily, as well as 
melons, though they are apt to bring very 
satisfactory results. Considerable difficulty will 
be experienced by the beginner in working on 
peas and beans, but, if the work is successfully 
done, remarkable results are likely to follow. 
He does not think it worth while to try to 
improve such vegetables as cauliflower, lettuce 
and cabbages by crossing, because they are 
most excellent as they are, and to cross them 
might easily result in so breaking up their old 

242 



HOW MxVY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

life habits and forming new ones as to result 
in vastly more harm than good. 

This he constantly guards against in his own 
work, — his aim is always to make things 
better than tliey ev^r were before. He does, 
however, heartily entourage selection, choosing 
the best plant of a given vegetable and, from 
year to year, choosing the best of its plants 
in turn, thereby steadily carrying it upward. 
He suggests here, as in the case of the flowers, 
that one choose some one particular vegetable 
which he thinks should be improved — one 
that needs to be larger, or better-looking, or 
thriftier, or finer in quality, and work on and 
on with it, as with the flowers, until the end 
desired is reached. 

Mr. Burbank urges the work of plant - 
breeding upon clerks, upon laboring men, 
business men, professional men, especially girls 
and women, — upon any man or woman who 
would like to take a hand in making the earth 
a more beautiful place in which to live. 

He points out the fact that results of sur- 
passing importance may come to the hand of 
any man who takes up this work primarily as a 
pastime or as a means of health. No man can 

MS 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

tell how a given experiment may end. Some- 
times, even in his own work, carried on upon 
so vast a scale and with apparently a command 
of every possible avenue of knowledge leading 
up to a given test, a plant will now and then 
burst forth in some new and wholly unex- 
pected direction and accomplish marvelous 
results. It is much as though the spirit of the 
plant had been waiting in embryo all these 
years for some one to bring it forth to life. 
He lays special stress, too, upon the fascina- 
tion of the work. Here is a man who has 
been engaged in plant-breeding for nearly 
forty years, who has created more new forms 
of plant life than any other man who has ever 
lived, who has been what one might almost 
call surfeited by successes, but who takes up 
each new experiment with as great a zest as 
ever, whose eye sparkles and whose face glows 
over a new development or the solution of a 
problem as vividly as it did when he began 
the work many years ago. For a man who is 
accustomed to the cold hard facts of the 
every-day, dealing with problems whose chief 
factors are dollars and cents, — for such a man 
to be able to take a life and train it into new 

U4i 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

ways, to change its habits, to break up old 
traits, to make it more beautiful and more 
useful, — in a word, to handle and mold it as 
the potter his clay, — all this has in it a fasci- 
nation beyond the conception of one who has 
never entered upon such a course. 

Again he makes this point: That plant- 
breeding for the amateur is one of the most 
important aids to health. Plant-breeding and 
selection can never be carried on at their best 
save in the open. To be sure, there are tests 
which may be begun, and some which may 
largely be carried on, in the winter months 
indoors, and these have their own peculiar 
interest, but there is a large part of the year 
in any temperate climate, and almost the 
entire year in some portions of the country, 
where the work of plant -breeding can be 
carried on out-of-doors. It is in this outdoor 
life that Mr. Burbank sees one of the greatest 
goods that can possibly come to a inan com- 
pelled for a great portion of his time to an 
indoor life. The plant-breeder, he maintains, 
should have neither time nor inclination to 
be sick. 

Highest of all his reasons for urging plant- 

245 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

breeding upon all people is its distinct moral 
influence. 

No man, he holds, can be a successful plant- 
breeder and practice deceit. He stands face to 
face with Nature, who never lies. No man, as 
he puts it, can come close to the heart of 
Nature and see how absolute is her honesty, 
never for a moment deviating a hair's breadth 
from the line of truth, and not be made a 
more honest man for the contact. In short, 
beyond all spirit of ethics, a man, he puts it, 
must be an honest man or he will never 
succeed at plant-breeding; — if he is not an 
honest man when he begins, Nature will 
make him so or drive him out of it. 

So there are five cardinal points in Mr. 
Burbank's argument for the extension of plant- 
breeding among people of all classes: 

1. The possibilities in the creation of new 
flowers and vegetables of surpassing value. 

2. The intense fascination of the work, not 
only giving delight but broadening and 
deepening any life which takes it up. 

3. The opportunity for the production of 
flowers and vegetables which shall have a 
distinct commercial value. 

346 



HOW MAY I DO IT TOO ;— BREEDING 

4. Its hygienic bearing upon those who 
wish to maintain the good health they already 
ha\'e and upon those who are seeking the 
health they may sadly need. 

5. The absolute necessity for devotion to 
truth — the breeding of honesty. 

I saw one day on a piece of paper which a 
friend had pinned to the wall in Mr. Bur- 
bank's little sitting-room this quotation from 
his favorite author, Emerson, singularly appro- 
priate to such a man, but which any man who 
makes a new flower may some day be able to 
take to himself: 

"If a man write a better book, preach a 
better sermon or make a better mouse -trap 
than his neighbor, though he build his home 
in the wilderness, the world will make a 
beaten path to his door." 



247 



CHAPTER XV 

HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO ; — GRAFTING 

XTE who is fortunate enough to stand some 
-*■-*- midsummer day on the summit of the 
Macayamas, an inner spur of the great Coast 
range, hard by the Pacific and skirting the 
beautiful Sonoma valley, will look out upon a 
scene of surpassing interest. In the foreground 
hes the fertile valley, with the fruit of its 
hundreds of ranches ripening in the mellow 
sunshine, pears and peaches, apricots and 
apples, plums and prunes and cherries, with 
here and there great vineyards heavy with 
grapes, the whole broken in upon by wide 
green fields of hops and broader stretches of 
yellow wheat, with the reapers already at their 
work. Through the valley flows the winding 
Russian river, emptying at last through a pass 
in the mountains into the Pacific at the point 
where the Russians came down in the early 
days and sought to fix their flag upon Spanish 
soil ; while far through the distance, across the 

248 



HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO;— GRAFTING 

green and yellow valley, rise the white peaks 
of the high Sierras two hundred miles away, 
their summits forever clothed in snow, keeping 
watch above their lower mountain wards and 
over the fair valley below. Just across the 
valley over the roof-tops of Santa Rosa you 
may see the low hills of Sebastopol ; — there 
lie the acres which have given scope for the 
great work of Mr. Burbank. Here is the 
culmination of the tests, the great proving 
grounds where the final standard is set up, 
alongside of which the flower or fruit must 
measure itself or be doomed to death. 

On these grounds, reaching eighteen acres in 
extent, the grafting of trees and the raising of 
seedlings goes on from year to year, as well 
as very much extensive work in pollenating 
and selection. And the scale on which these 
things are carried forward is larger than any 
ever before known in the history of the world. 

A sunny, beautiful spot it is, far from city 
sounds and strifes, lying softly asleep in the 
golden sunshine with the fair hills beyond, 
purple or crimson or yellow or Avhite as the 
summer flowers come on in never-ending 
procession. Asleep it is, and yet awake, 

249 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

insistently, aggressively awake, for here from 
dawn to dark a life of the most tense activity 
is lived where things must be done with the 
regularity of a machine and the persistence of 
the sun in its course. Here the field experi- 
ments are carried on, and here Mr. Burbank 
does his largest work. Flowers are raised here 
by the hundred thousand, by the half million 
indeed, waiting the eye of the master of them 
all who shall say what one out of all their vast 
number shall be saved. Here seeds of all 
manner of fruits are planted by the hundreds 
of thousands if needs be, apples, pears, peaches, 
quinces, nectarines, plums, prunes, — a list as 
long as the hst of the world's best known 
fruits. Here are long rows of young trees, 
hardly saplings in size, from two to five years 
old and from three to five feet in height, 
standing in serried rows so close to one an- 
other that the tiny branches intertwine. They 
will all be scrutinized one of these days, and 
the best of them all, one perhaps out of a 
hundred thousand, will be saved. The rest 
will be dug up and burned in great brush 
heaps. Sometimes there have been as many as 
fourteen of these huge heaps, comprising from 

250 



HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO ;— GRAFTING 

sixty to seventy thousand shrubs or young 
trees in a single test burned up in a single day, 
and simply because they did not come up 
to the standard set for them. 

Here and there after such a slaughter you 
may see a tiny little tree, perhaps leafless and 
certainly to the eye of the layman presenting 
no signs of superiority. But it bears a curious 
little badge, a white streamer of cloth tied 
about its middle, the sign that henceforth 
it is sacred, — it is the one best one of the 
thousands. 

Some idea of the magnitude of the work 
may be obtained from the following figures, 
illustrating the average number of fruits under 
test at a given time at Sebastopol from year 
to year: 

Three hundred thousand distinct varieties 
of plums, different in foliage, in form of fruit, 
in shipping, keeping and canning qualities, 
sixty thousand peaches and nectarines, five to 
six thousand almonds, two thousand cherries, 
two thousand pears, one thousand grapes, 
three thousand apples, one thousand two 
hundred quinces, five thousand walnuts, five 
thousand chestnuts, five to six thousand berries 

251 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

of various kinds, with many thousands of 
other fruits, flowers and vegetables. 

The grafting done at Sebastopol, hke all the 
work carried on there, is on a large scale. In a 
single grafting season, which comprises about 
ninety working days, more than a hundred 
thousand grafts will be set, covering a wide 
variety of experiments going forward at the 
same time with many different kinds of fruits. 
From these grafts will grow in a single season 
material for nearly ten million additional 
grafts. Some years since, a company was 
formed in California whose entire business was 
the making of grafts from one of INIr. Bur- 
bank's choicest plums, selling the grafts to 
nurserymen and fruit-growers all over the 
world. 

At various points throughout the grafting 
section of the grounds young men may be 
seen perched on the tops of ladders in the 
midst of the branches of the trees upon which 
the grafts are set. In this, as in the case of 
flowers and vegetables, Mr. Burbank stands 
ready with suggestions for those who wish to 
take up this branch of the work. 

From the young trees which have been 

252 




Showing method of grafting 



HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO;— GRAFTING 

saved out of the burnings in the different tests 
branches are cut away, and each branch, Httle 
more than a twig in size, not more than half 
as thick as the httle finger, is cut up into 
pieces about two inches long, each piece, tech- 
nically called a cion, bearing two to three 
buds. The tops and side branches of the tree 
which is to serve as the host for all the many 
grafts must be cut away, leaving the tree pre- 
senting a peculiarly grotesque appearance. In 
the end of each branch the pieces of the twigs 
from the little trees under test are to be 
placed. These host, or parent, trees are used 
from year to year, sometimes a single tree 
bearing five hundred distinct kinds of grafts at 
the same time. 

The workman who is grafting is equipped 
with a sharp pruning-knife, a saw to cut away 
the upper branches, a pot of melted wax, a 
brush and some pieces of white cloth. In the 
end of the sawed-ofF branch of the parent tree 
he cuts a slit with his knife. He has made one 
end of the two tiny grafts he holds wedge- 
shaped. One of the grafts he holds in his 
mouth, while he forces the wedge of the other 
down into the slit. Then the second graft is 

253 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

stuck in place, sometimes three or even four 
to a single branch, the pot of melted wax is 
lifted up, the branch end and the graft are 
thickly spread with it, a white cloth is wound 
about the joint — the union is complete; and 
rapidly the sap of the old tree begins sending 
its life-forces up through the new life growing 
upon it. The graft grows on and on until it is 
two or possibly three seasons old ; then it puts 
out its own buds and flowers, bears its own 
fruit, wholly different it may be from any 
other fruit growing upon the other branches. 

The union of the graft and the parent tree 
will not be complete unless the cambium of 
the two is merged. This cambium is a layer of 
viscid, mucilaginous substance composed of 
cells, lying between the bark and the wood 
of the tree and from which both derive their 
growth. IMr. Burbank calls it a predigested 
food, for the nourishment of the new graft. 

Sometimes the workman makes a long 
slanting cut instead of cutting the branch off 
square and makes a similar cut in the graft. 
Two slits are then made in each, and the 
tongues of the graft thus formed are forced 
down into the slits of the branch. 

254 



HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO;— GRAFTING 

Many other kinds of grafts are in use by 
horticulturists, but JNIr. Burbank considers 
these two quite sufficient. Budding, which is 
the placing of the bud of the graft or cion 
underneath the bark of the parent or host 
tree, he very seldom uses. 

Some years since, a profound discussion was 
can-ied on in England over grafting, the oppo- 
nents of it claiming that it was always a make- 
shift, often a fraud; that it was, in effect, only 
a kind of adulteration; that any fruit tree that 
would not succeed on its own roots should go 
to the rubbish heap; that grafted trees are 
coddled, while own -rooted trees are in all 
ways infinitely better, healthier and longer- 
lived. It seems quite enough to say in this 
connection that the man who has carried on 
the blending of tree and cion upon a scale of 
greater extent than any other man finds graft- 
ing not only eminently successful but impera- 
tive. One single series of experiments carried 
on for so many years and on so vast a scale as 
Mr. Burbank's experiments is sufficient to dis- 
prove many theories and to overturn many 
conclusions. 

But there remains something else of still 

255 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

greater importance, — the fruit of this graft 
must be superior to all fruits of its kind which 
have preceded it, more nutritious, more deli- 
cious to the taste, more attractive to the eye, 
safer to ship than any of its forbears. All 
these points must be settled, together with 
other important points as to hardiness and 
yielding qualities, and adaptability to various 
soils and climates before the new fruit can be 
given to the world. The demands constantly 
made upon him in the production of a new 
fruit are very many and of great insistence 
before the fruit or flower has been brought 
up to his ideal. 

Some strange things happen in the midst of 
this grafting, and some of these, or others 
quite as curious, may happen to any one who 
takes up this peculiarly fascinating branch of 
plant-breeding. Sometimes in Mr. Burbank's 
experience the graft will influence the tree 
upon which it is grafted, increasing its foliage, 
strengthening its roots, and otherwise making 
it more thrifty. He grafted a Japanese pear, 
for example, upon a Bartlett pear, and while 
the graft went forward, producing the Japan- 
ese pear fruit, the parent pear tree bearing its 

256 



HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO;— GRAFTING 

customary Bartlett pears, the parent tree soon 
took on a greatly increased vigor. Sometimes 
the union of the graft and the tree will be 
complete, but, as he puts it, in the great stress 
of iniusual drought or fruiting the grafted por- 
tion will separate again, later, and entirely fall 
off. Curious results are seen in some crosses, 
as, for example, some plum -almond crosses 
where there was every possible variation in the 
flowers, — some of them having all stamens 
and no pistils, some having many petals, some 
having no petals, some never opening like 
normal flowers at all, some having no stamens 
but only pistils. Sometimes a cross of a peach 
and an almond will produce a tree as large as 
ten peach trees or almond trees of the same 
age. Sometimes the precise opposite will be the 
case. Now and then the graft grows up thrift- 
ily and bears fruit, and its seeds are planted 
with the result that none will grow. ]\Ir. 
Burbank says that a certain character, or char- 
acteristic, may lie latent through many gene- 
rations, or even centuries, and then appear just 
when the right cross is made to bring it out. 

But probably the most mysterious thing 
that has ever happened, in some ways at least, 

257 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

in all his grafting tests was that of a union of 
two plums, one brought over from France, 
there being no other plum like it in the new 
world, the other the Kelsey plum, well known 
in western America. The graft was attached 
to the parent tree, the Kelsey, in the usual 
way, but, when blooming time came, the graft, 
though growing heartily, put forth no blos- 
soms. It did, however, a still stranger thing 
than this, one of the strangest in all plant 
history, — it changed the entire life of the par- 
ent, — a thing hinted at by Darwin as being in 
the list of possibilities but never known before. 
The tree, by some strange influence born of 
the grafting, completely changed its own life, 
or, at least, so changed it that its own seeds 
in turn developed the French plum. It thus 
formed in the tree itself a cross between two 
trees that had never been crossed before, the 
life of the one entering into and transforming 
the life of the other. 

Mr. Burbank heartily recommends tlie work 
of grafting from seedlings to all amateurs, 
whether their grounds are small or large. He 
says that such immediate results need not be 
looked for as in the breeding of flowers, be- 

858 



HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO;— GRAFTING 

cause the chances for unusually fine fruits from 
a given number of seedlings are not great. 
Very many seeds of apples, for example, may 
be planted, hundreds, even thousands, of them, 
and not one of the trees which grow from the 
seeds may bear a fruit any better than the 
apples which have gone before, while a very 
large proportion of them are more than likely 
to be inferior or worthless. Still, he holds that 
the chances of producing one good new apple 
are quite sufficient, considering the bearing of 
such a new fruit upon the commerce of the 
world, to well warrant one in carrying on the 
experiments. He recommends for the amateur 
all the hardier cherries, peaches, apples, pears 
and plums to choose from for beginning, and 
also all manner of berries. The seeds or pits 
from the best fruit obtainable should be kept 
very slightly moist through the winter for the 
spring planting. The larger the number of 
them, the greater the opportunities for in- 
teresting results. The seeds should be planted 
in a trench from a half-inch to an inch deep, 
though no hard and fast rule may be set down 
applicable to all. It will be necessary to bear 
in mind the climate in which one lives in se- 

259 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

lecting a fruit upon which to work. Experi- 
ments may, however, develop some quite 
interesting results if the effort is made to 
produce a fruit which will be hardier than any 
grown in one's locality, thus adding, if success- 
ful, a new feature of value. 

By the end of the first season the young 
trees should be large enough for grafting 
wood. The work of grafting should begin 
when the spring is first coming or just before 
the buds are swelling. The tiny branches of 
the young tree to be grafted should be cut up 
into pieces about two inches long, with two or 
three buds on each, and then grafted in the 
manner noted above. 

In grafting, care must be taken that seed 
fruits be grafted upon trees bearing seed 
fruits, pit fruit upon pit fruits. For example, 
it will not do to graft a plum upon an apple 
tree, but upon another plum tree or upon an 
apricot, almond or peach; an apple graft upon 
an apple tree, and so on. 

As indicated in Mr. Burbank's own work, 
the larger the number of seeds sown the 
greater the chances of success. Here, as in the 
case of flowers, Mr. Burbank points out the 

260 



HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO;— GRAFIING 

possibilities of producing something of surpas- 
sing value to the world. Even in case the new 
fruit created is not better than old fruits of 
the same class, there is great satisfaction, as 
with the flowers, in being able to present to a 
friend a fruit which one has himself made ; 
while there is before one the other possibility 
of producing a fruit which is to revolutionize, 
as many of his fruits are revolutionizing, the 
production of the world. 

The seedlings could be transplanted from 
their trench and allowed to grow to maturity 
upon their own roots, but this would, as a rule, 
take all the way from six to twenty years, 
while by grafting them upon a mature tree 
they may be hurried forward to fruitage in 
two to four seasons. It would have been 
impossible for Mr. Burbank to have reached 
the results he has achieved if he had depended 
upon first raising his seedlings to the period of 
bearing fruit before determining their value. 
He could not have accomplished the ends he 
has reached in a thousand years. 

In the way of instruments Mr. Burbank 
recommends to the amateur any good pruning- 
knife of fine steel, a smaller knife like 

261 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

a budding-knife, a small can for the wax, with 
a paint brush to put it on the graft -joint, a 
stock of small strips of white cloth. Other 
and more elaborate grafting devices can be 
bought, but ]Mr. Burbank considers these 
sufficient, too elaborate an outfit being a 
hindrance rather than a help. 

The wax he recommends should be made of 
four pounds of resin to one pound of beeswax, 
with enough linseed oil to make it work well. 
This, when melted up together and allowed 
to cool, forms a cake from which enough can 
be broken at any time for the work in hand, 
and the rest will keep indefinitely. The piece 
which is broken off should be heated until it is 
warm enough to flow easily. It should not be 
too soft or it will run in the warm sun, nor 
too hard or it will crack. The object is to 
protect the union of the graft and the tree 
by means of the wax and the enclosing 
bandage of cloth, and a very little experience 
will show when the wax is of just the right 
consistency. It is well, if there is considerable 
grafting to be done, to keep the can or pot 
containing the wax over a lainp or small oil- 
stove in order to hold it at the proper con- 

262 



HOW INI AY I DO IT, TOO ;— GRAFTING 

sistency. ^V little more linseed oil may at 
any time be added, if the wax gets too hard. 
This may be regulated, of com'se, at will. Mr. 
Burbank says the wax must be a good deal 
harder than ordinary chewing gum. 

When one has an estate of some consider- 
able size and wishes to carry on the work of 
growing new kinds of fruit on a larger scale, 
results may be easily attained far-reaching in 
their extent and with still larger opportunities 
for the production of a fruit of unique char- 
acter. To show somewhat the possibilities of 
reproduction of grafts, Mr. Burbank says that 
a single tree two years old, when cut up into 
grafts, will produce in that same season 
from three to four thousand buds. If each 
one of the buds from these four thousand 
would produce its full quota, so that it would 
be possible to keep up the progression, at 
the end of the third season the single bud 
would have become parent to over two 
hundred and fifty billions of trees. 

Very little poUenating of the flowers of the 
fruit trees is now done by Mr. Burbank 
because he has made so very many combina- 
tions and has such a vast number of different 

263 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

kinds of trees already started on their way 
that it would not be worth while to make 
further crossings. 

In this connection it is of peculiar interest 
to note that Mr. Burbank has come to the 
conclusion, after many years of crossing, or 
hybridizing, and grafting, that hybridization 
in one sense is only a mode of grafting, both 
being a more or less permanent combination. 

In an elaborate chart he traces side by side 
the parallelism of results he has noted in both 
grafting and pollenating: 

Where, for example, the pollen of one plant 
acts as a poison upon another, the grafts 
blight and die as if poisoned. 

Where, in pollenating, the union is partial, 
mosaic or temporary, seed is rarely produced, 
seedlings generally inheriting tendencies and 
qualities of one parent only, the second or 
later generations reverting fully; the grafting 
shows often a temporary union but not in 
normal condition. 

Where the union by crossing is free, seed- 
lings showing an unbalanced condition, 
varying widely, the best condition for scien- 
tific or natural selection, while the grafting 

264 



HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO;— GRAFllNG 

shows a ready union of cion and tree but 
separation follows under unusual stress, 
drought, overbearing, lack of nourishment, 
and so on. 

In another stage of usual variation where, 
in crossing, the union is free, the seed of 
superior germinating quality and produced 
abundantly, the seedlings being normal with 
ordinary amount of variability, the grafts 
unite readily, thriving well; sometimes better 
than when grafted on their own stock. 

He says on this point: 

"Where the plants are very different, having 
a different line of descent and consequently 
different structure, there will be no hybridiza- 
tion at all. From this we have every grada- 
tion to a point where the individuals are very 
closely alike, and here we also have scarcely 
any variation at all in the progeny, a condition 
which favors extinction. Again, in grafting, 
we have every intergradation between total 
inability to unite and absolutely perfect 
blend." 

Along with all the work of grafting goes 
constant selection, the constant choosing of 
the best from the best. It might be somewhat 

265 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

difficult for an amateur breeder to make 
selection from a lot of seedlings as Mr. Bur- 
bank does, choosing the very best from a 
hundred thousand with unerring eye, in a 
single day's time, but it will require but 
comparatively little training for any one who 
is deeply interested in the work to make 
intelligent choice between the few young trees 
of beginning experiments as they come, 
selecting those which are in all ways thriftier 
and " likelier " trees. When all is said and 
done, selection in plant - breeding is very 
largely a matter of individual judgment, 
backed up by the largest possible knowledge 
attainable as to the life history and past 
environment of the plant itself. 

Mr. Burbank offers the following sug- 
gestions as to orchard - grafting : 

" Commence in January, if much is to be 
done. February is probably the best month 
on most of the Pacific coast. March is as good 
if the grafting - wood has been well kept. 
April is not too late, and May sometimes and 
for some things, is a good month. One and a 
half to two and a half inches in diameter is 
the best grafting size of branch for old trees. 

266 



HOW MAY I DO IT, TOO;— GRAFTING 

If cut back to where the branches are thicker 
the tree receives too great a shock, the grafts 
do not take hold as well and the tree forms 
a close, bunchy head which is not ornamental 
or profitable. Graft the branches where you 
wish them to grow to form a new top, leave 
many twigs and smaller and unimportant 
branches to keep the sap up until the grafts 
have one season's growth. All suckers near 
the grafts should be pulled off as soon as 
they appear. It is very important, after 
grafting, to watch and cut back a part of the 
new growth early in the season, else the wind 
may get too great a leverage and break out 
the grafts before fully healed over. It is also 
often best to reinforce them for a while with 
a small twig or stick tightly tied to the old 
branch and lightly tied to the new growth." 



267 



CHAPTER XVI 

COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF THE WORK 

TN forming any just estimate of the com- 
-■- mercial importance of Mr. Burbank's work, 
different factors must be taken into considera- 
tion. Though it is a quarter of a century 
since he began the actual work of plant-breed- 
ing on a large scale, it is only within the past 
ten or twelve years that the most important 
lines have been developed. At the time he 
closed out his nursery business in 1893 he 
entered upon a series of important experi- 
ments, many of which are but just coming 
into fruition. It takes all the way from ten to 
fifteen years, in some cases much longer, to 
carry a new plant forward to its perfected stage. 
For example, the amaryllis took nineteen 
years, the hybrid lilies over twenty, and both 
are still to have further attention. Not only 
must the actual excellence of a new fruit, for 
example, be determined and its standing 
ascertained alongside of other fruits then in 

268 



COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF THE WORK 

existence, but time enough must elapse for it 
to become thoroughly fixed in its new ways 
so that it will not revert to some former 
condition of inefficiency. 

Then, too, when all this has been accom- 
plished, it still must stand the test of the 
orchard, the shipper, the dealer and the 
consumer. It must be grown, too, by the 
average fruit-grower under average conditions. 
As has elsewhere been noted, Mr. Burbank 
fits the new fruit, in so far as he possibly can, 
for just these average conditions, so that wlien 
it goes out from under his care he is willing to 
trust it to the world. But no human being 
can tell what the commercial outcome of a 
new fruit will be. It may have undoubted 
superiority over others of its class, but it may 
not at once catch the popular fancy. It may 
fall into the hands of some one who for one 
and another reason does not care to push it 
forward ; possibly not until some other favorite 
has run its course. Then, again, a new fruit 
may require a special and particular handling 
in its shipment or in some other feature of its 
life, and imless the conditions are carefully 
complied with the best results will not come. 

^60 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

Sometimes, as Mr. Burbank puts it, the fruit- 
raiser m^ust be adapted to the fruit. It must 
be borne in mind also, in any consideration of 
the commercial feature, that many of the 
creations of Mr. Burbank are not commercially 
identified with his name, having been bought 
by florists or horticulturists who exploit them 
in their own way and under names of their 
own selection. 

Aside from all this, the very heart and 
spirit of Mr. Burbank's method are directly 
opposed to any monopolistic control of his 
new fruits. To get these fruits to the general 
public at the earliest moment possible and at 
the lowest figure is his highest aim. "Abso- 
lutely no restrictions," that is the key-note. 
One of the largest fruit-growers in California 
estimates that Mr. Burbank could easily be 
making a net revenue of two hundred thou- 
sand dollars per year if he should hold back 
his fruits and flowers and handle them solely 
for the money that could be made from them. 
But to do this would be to stultify himself; 
his measure of success has not been the 
standard of the dollar : success to him means 
the accomplishment of the greatest possible 

270 



COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF THE WORK 

good for the greatest possible number of 
people. 

A number of prominent fruit-growers with 
a keen eye to thrift approached Mr. Burbank 
one day with a proposition to form a corpora- 
tion or syndicate for the handling of one of 
his new plums, a particularly valuable one, in 
some ways the most important plum he had 
made. In a most captivating way the promo- 
ters of the scheme presented its attractions. 
The gentlemen interested had seen the vast 
possibilities in the absolute control of the fruit, 
and Mr. Burbank's share in the profits to accrue 
was alluringly presented. The project was in 
no way dishonorable and it was distinctly 
business-like, but it was in direct opposition 
to Mr. Burbank's life policy — to place no 
restrictions upon his productions but to get 
them running in the channels of the public 
at the earliest date possible. So the plum 
syndicate was never formed. 

When Mr. Burbank began placing his new 
creations on the market, after he had given 
up the nursery business, he stated in one of 
his lists: 

"The time, the care and the expense of 

«71 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

producing these new fruits and flowers are 
simply astounding to those not familiar with 
the facts. They are usually offered once 
only, all the main financial profit being se- 
cured by the early purchasers and planters. 
If in the past I had received only one cent 
for each ten thousand dollars added to the 
wealth of the world by my plant productions, 
those mentioned in the list could be passed 
out freely to all who aslv ; but no great 
undertaking can long exist without some 
provision for running expenses, therefore the 
prices accompanying this list. I have no 
government aid, no college endowment, and 
nothing whatever to keep up the work except 
the occasional sale of these new fruits and 
flowers." 

One of the most prominent men in the 
fruit-growing industry in California, a hard- 
headed, successful business man who had for 
many years been interested in Mr. Burbank's 
life work, said concerning the financial side 
of his M'^ork : 

" Not many know of the influence that has 
been brought to bear upon Mr. Burbank to 
make a big business enterprise of his novelties, 

272 



COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF THE WORK 

Many have begged the opportunity of going 
into partnership with him on a very large 
scale, offering to provide all the money neces- 
sary. Eager requests for the plants that he 
has to sell come from every country, and he 
had the making at Santa Rosa of the greatest 
and most profitable nursery business in the 
world. Mr. Burbank, however, is not out 
for money. INIoney to him is only a means 
to an end — the blessing of mankind by as 
wide a distribution as possible of flowers more 
beautiful and fruits of higher grade than 
ever before existed. 

" AVhen Mr. Burbank introduced his won- 
derful sugar prune four years ago, I secured 
a hundred feet of grafting wood from him, 
and produced four thousand nursery trees in 
a single year. In the succeeding year I had 
over fifty thousand trees for sale — by far the 
largest stock of that variety then in existence. 
I had difficulty in disposing of the trees, 
because they were not then known to be a 
commercial success, and California growers 
would not plant out large quantities until 
they knew the public would buy the fruit. 
Mr. Burbank, as I knew, had sold out his 

273 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

stock the first season, and I offered to furnish 
the trees to fiU his orders. Mr. Burbank, 
however, rephed that he had left the nursery 
business some time ago, and was now drop- 
ping the tree business, as he had not a moment 
to spare to attend to such things, but it 
would give him the greatest pleasure to turn 
over any customers he might have to me. 
Subsequently many different people bought 
sugar prune trees of me who had been 
recommended to me by Mr. Burbank. This 
incident made a great impression on me, 
because I knew that Mr. Burbank could make 
good use of the money. Is it not inspiring to 
know that a scientist of Mr. Burbank's fame 
is so free from the frailties that are induced 
by a love of money? Luther Burbank is a 
man who could be rich, but he will not 
consider the object as worth attaining. He 
is wholly devoted to making the world more 
beautiful with flowers, and more pleasant 
with new and wonderful fruits." 

While many thousands of dollars have 
been invested in the production of the new 
plums, and while they have but barely begun 
their commercial course both here and in 

274 



COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF THE AVORK 

foreign countries, they are distinctly threat- 
ened by ]Mr. Burbank himself, and this is why 
it is so very difficult to give any adequate 
estimate of the commercial value of his new 
plums and prunes. They are threatened be- 
cause when his new pitless plum and the 
pitless prune which will follow are once upon 
the market, the death -knell of present-day 
plums and prunes of their class will have 
been sounded. These new plums and prunes 
promise to be just as beautiful, just as rich, 
or richer, just as hardy and prolific, and the 
place of the pits of former centuries is to be 
occupied with the meat of the fruit itself. As 
soon as this is done, many plum and prune 
orchards in the world will be practically 
supplanted, and all of them inust eventually 
be made over to suit the new order of things. 
Day by day, as his splendid plums and 
prunes make their way among the fruit-grow- 
ers, they are paying handsomely on the invest- 
ment, and they will yield their revenues up 
to the very limit of the date of the appearing 
of the new plum, and even on beyond, while 
it is coming into bearing, so that there will 
be no great and wholesale disaster. But the 

275 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

hand-writing is on the wall, and fruit-grow- 
ers have long since taken note of it: the 
revolution will be bloodless, but it promises 
to be complete. 

I was much interested in the statement of a 
fruit-grower who had handled one of Mr. Bur- 
bank's prunes. It was a venture with him, for 
though nearly one-third richer in sugar than 
the French prune, much larger, and more pro- 
lific, it had not turned out the season before 
so well as he had hoped; though he noted, 
however, that this may have been in some 
measure due to the season itself. The impor- 
tant feature, however, from a commercial 
point of view was this, that he had simply 
changed the prune into a plum, selling it by 
the thousands of cases in the East where, on 
the New York, Boston and Chicago markets 
it sold at the head of the list on such days as 
it was offered for sale. The French prune with 
which it was competing as a prune had no 
merit whatever as an eating and shipping 
plum. 

While the next few years promise still 
greater returns to the world from IVIr. Bur- 
bank's creations, because at the date of the 

276 



COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF THE WORK 

issuance of this volume so many of them are 
but just coming into commercial sway, it is to 
the somewhat more distant future unquestion- 
ably that the greatest commercial triumphs are 
to be won for the world. And this is not be- 
cause the present -time creations are not splen- 
didly fulfilling their mission, but because the 
newer work has vastly greater possibilities. In 
the pitless plums and prunes, the new grasses, 
the thornless cactus, the new fast-growing 
forest trees, the frost-resisting trees, the work 
in new varieties of pears, apples, quinces, 
peaches, apricots and berries, together with 
other experiments under way which have not 
yet reached so advanced a stage, lie vaster 
commercial possibilities than in anything he 
has yet achieved, as well as a greater measure 
of service to the race. 



277 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION GRANT 

A S has been indicated in a former chapter, 
-^^^- a day came in INIr. Burbank's career 
when it was evident that, no matter how 
much he still might accomplish for the world, 
he could not hope to go forward at a pace 
commensurate with his genius and his oppor- 
tunities without outside aid. By aid would be 
meant not some subvention from some insti- 
tution or state or government which would 
first recognize him as in want and then lend a 
helping hand, while establishing, at the same 
time, an essentially selfish hold upon him. 
While it was true that year by year he was 
running behind in his expenses, he had long 
since passed the period of privation, though 
he had never passed the point of strictest 
economy in order that no cent might be 
wasted but all devoted to his lifework. Any 
aid which should come to him, then, must be 
first of all sympathetic — using the word in its 

278 



THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION GRANT 

very broadest meaning; and, next, it must 
be aid devoted, as he is devoted, to the welfare 
of the world, which should enable him to at- 
tain in his own way a still larger measure of 
usefulness than he could have accomplished 
alone. Important as his work has already 
been, even more must have been accomplished 
had there been greater freedom of service. 

During a period of fifteen or eighteen years 
there had been frequent suggestions made by 
those who knew the work best that aid of 
some kind should be given in order that the 
work should not suffer. Suggestions, now and 
then came in reviews in local newspapers of 
the wonderful things being accomplished. 
Now and then some government official, in- 
terested in the scientific and practical depart- 
ments of the broad subject of plant develop- 
ment, visited Mr. Burbank, was amazed at the 
enterprise under way, and was full of regret 
that the government could not take hold of 
the work and help carry it forward, — it would 
be impossible, was the usual line of thought, 
for the government to offer any specific aid 
without incurring the charge of paternalism 
and opening the way to an indefinite and 

279 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

unfortunate extension of aid to others less 
deserving. 

While no one else save himself could pos- 
sibly know how much aid would have meant 
to him at times when, driven to the very limit 
of physical and mental strain, he could see no 
possible way over the financial obstacles that 
confronted him, yet never in the course of his 
life had he ever asked for aid from individual, 
corporate body, state or nation. Time and 
again foreign scientists or horticulturists 
visiting Mr. Burbank expressed amazement 
that no subvention had ever been made by his 
government, because the vast importance of 
the work was not less significant than the 
wealth which must accrue to the state by pro- 
vision of funds to carry the work forward on 
larger lines. 

At last the w^hole subject was brought to 
the attention of the trustees of the Carnegie 
Institution at Washington. After a searching 
consideration of the matter, an offer was made 
of a subvention, or grant, it is understood of 
one hundred thousand dollars, ten thousand 
dollars per year for ten years. Briefly stated, 
the object of this Institution, founded by 

280 




The re-created wild onion flower, Brodia'a capifafa, chan^-ed from 
a deep purple to purest white and greatly increased in size 



THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION GRANT 

Andrew Carnegie and incorporated in 1902, is 
as follows: 

" To promote original research as one of the 
most important of all subjects; to discover the 
exceptional man and enable him to make the 
work for which he seems specially designed his 
lifework ; to publish and distribute the results 
of scientific investigation ; to increase facilities 
for higher education. In the field of research 
the function of the Institution is organization; 
— to substitute organized for unorganized 
effort; to unite scattered individuals working 
independently, where it appears that such 
combination of effort will produce the best 
results; and to endeavor to prevent needless 
dupHcation of work. The Institution does not 
attempt to do anything that is being w ell done 
by other agencies; to do that which can be 
better done by other agencies ; to give aid to 
individuals or other organizations in order to 
reheve them of financial responsibilities which 
they are not able to carry ; to enter into agree- 
ment with any organization for the purpose of 
conductive research unless the conditions are 
such as to reasonably assure continuation of 
the agreement through a sufficient period of 

281 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

time to complete the special research entered 
upon." 

It will thus appear that the Institution 
comes into particularly close consonance with 
the work which Mr. Burba-^k had so long 
been carrying on under peculiar difficulties. 

The grant became available at the begin- 
ning of 1905. 

There are two important features, or phases, 
of Mr. Burbank's work of which the Carnegie 
Institution takes special cognizance. One of 
these is its practical bearing upon the welfare 
of mankind. In a work so many- sided as this, 
the scope of this practical application is at 
once suggested, — how best to effect this 
practical application is of paramount im- 
portance. 

Many times in his career Mr. Burbank has 
been forced to abandon a given experiment, 
not because it did not promise to yield 
admirable results, but because he did not 
have sufficient funds to carry it forward. 
This was particularly true of those tests which 
he would have been glad to follow out because 
of the especial scientific interest that attached 
to their development. The actual expense 

282 



THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION GRANT 

for manual labor for the carrying forward of 
a single test through a long series of years 
is large in the aggregate, especially so since 
the manual labor for his service must be 
backed up by keen intelligence and sound 
judgment, a combination not always easy to 
be obtained. There have been very many 
tests, hundreds sometimes, under way at the 
same time, and it was inevitable that some 
must fall by the way. So great has been the 
demand for funds for the maintenance of 
major tests that many of the minor ones, 
which might easily have been advanced to 
the higher position, have, like a neglected 
plant, died for want of support. 

It is of special interest in this connection 
that INIr. Burbank's work has been cumulative 
from the very inception. With each new 
triumph the way has opened to others, so 
that at no time in his life had there been 
so many great opportunities before him as 
when this grant was proposed. Best of all, 
as the years had come and gone, he entered 
upon each new experiment fuller of interest 
in the outcome, deeper in his zest over the 
developments. Couple with this maturity of 

283 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

all his powers, — judgment, discrimination, 
intuition, observation, scientific thought in its 
widest and deepest bearing, and the like, — and 
you have the ideal conditions for enterprise 
of the loftiest type. 

But in order that these larger results might 
be reached, larger revenues must be available 
to draw upon. It is this revenue that the 
Carnegie Institution has so wisely provided. 
The grants of the Institution are never 
charitable. It has no funds for indigents. It 
is intensely practical in its methods and in 
its administration of its funds. It places no 
money save where, directly or indirectly, its 
expenditure will bring an ultimate practical 
or scientific benefit. Doubtless much time 
might be saved to applicants for aid if this 
were more carefully considered. 

The practical side of the work will go 
forward under the grant precisely as it has 
gone on before during all the years of Mr. 
Burbank's great work, save that its scope wiU 
be much broadened. Tests once impossible 
will now become possible. With a larger 
force of men trained in his methods he will, 
as the years pass, be able more and more to 

284 







r. 5* 



x 


M 






^ 


a, 


It 


CO 

3 




O 


c: 


SI 



THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION GRANT 

delegate work which once he was unable 
to delegate, thus net only saving his own 
strength for the new and more important tests 
and for the general oversight of the work, but 
permitting a much larger number of ex- 
periinents, if necessary, to be under progress 
at the same time, and vastly to accelerate the 
movement of the work. This is not a de- 
partment of the work which calls for more 
elaborate apparatus, — the earth and man, these 
are the essentials, and the higher the intel- 
lectual strength and sympathy of the men 
INIr. Burbank is able to secure, the larger the 
results. The object is not to attempt in any 
way to curb or direct or interfere : this would 
be absolutely fatal; what is intended is that 
there shall be constant sympathetic aid. 

But, at the same time, the Institution 
stands also for scientific attainment, and the 
completest ineasures will be taken for the 
keeping of adequate data, as well as provision 
for the making of laboratory records. To this 
end trained experts who are in close touch and 
sympathy with Mr. Burbank, will aid in the 
preparation of the mass of important data 
which must steadily accumulate in so extensive 

285 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

a work. As will be shown in a succeeding 
chapter, Mr. Burbank has by no means been 
lacking in the matter of general scientific 
record, but the new arrangements will give 
opportunity for the registering of much that 
should be preserved for the benefit of others. 
Microscopic and photo-microscopic work, as 
well as elaborate recording of the details in 
the life history of plants under test, will be 
followed with the utmost care. Funds will be 
provided for this and for the necessary atten- 
dant expense in equipment and salaries. It was 
utterly out of the question for INlr. Burbank 
to prepare such elaborate data as will now be 
of record, greatly as he desired it, though it 
will appear in the description of his novel plan 
books that he has never for a inoment lost 
sight of the absolute necessity of fundamental 
records. 

As the work progresses through the years, 
there will be publication of the data compiled 
and set in order by trained men. Elaborate 
photographic records, aside from micro-photo- 
graphic ones, will give charm as well as 
definiteness in preserving the larger events in 
the life history of fruits and flowers. The only 

286 



THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION GRANT 

man who can ever succeed in the deep sense 
in association with Mr. Burbank in the 
development of the scientific phases of his 
work is a man who has not only the liberal 
training of the schools and the inborn love 
for research, but who sees beyond the mere 
matter of academic record, important though 
it be, into the noble field of true science where 
he who wins for science and the world must 
stand ready to divest himself of the impedi- 
menta of precedent the very instant it be 
found inadequate. Such men, working with 
this man, should not only win new triumphs for 
science, but set forward the standard of the 
practical. It need scarcely be added that such 
men will be in unquestioned sympathy with 
Mr. Burbank and the great work which lies 
before and behind him. 

It may be noted, in passing, as an illustra- 
tion of the expenses attached to the work, 
that, during the busiest season, when grafting, 
transplanting and general culture are at their 
highest, between six hundred and eight 
hundred dollars a month must be paid out for 
laborers' hire alone — a sum that will increase 
rather than decrease as the work advances. 

287 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

To one who gives even a cursory glance, — 
and this only at the practical side of this great 
work, — this grant will appear to have been 
splendidly bestowed. The value of it must 
still more clearly come into view as the years 
pass. It is to be doubted if the Institution ever 
offers a subvention for a more commanding 
purpose. The work is not only of supreme 
interest to people in every walk of life, but it 
is of transcendant commercial importance, as 
well as having a powerful bearing upon the 
welfare of the people. The results of this 
work are not for the benefit of the Carnegie 
Institution. They are not for Luther Bur- 
bank. They are not for his state, or his coun- 
try, but for aU states and all countries, and 
for all the centuries. And should it happen as 
a result of this grant that some other man, or 
men, shall be raised up who shall prove them- 
selves worthy to carry on this great work 
when he who has inaugurated it shall lay it 
down, thus preserving continuity of effort, a 
still greater boon will have been conferred 
upon mankind. There is no other enterprise 
in the world by which this may be measured. 
It stands alone, unique among movements 

288 



THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION GRANT 

for practical and scientific betterment. The 
scope of its possibilities lies out beyond the 
sweep of the imagination. The Carnegie 
Institution, in granting this subvention to JMr. 
Burbank, has performed a splendid and sub- 
stantial service for the world. 



289 



CHAPTER XVIII 

A DAY WITH MR. BURBANK 

XF in this chapter some impression may be 
-*- conveyed of the tremendous strain under 
which this great work is done, a point will 
have been gained. If it shall serve in any 
measure to check the advance of the thou- 
sands of people who annually, and in steadily 
increasing numbers, visit INIr. Burbank out of 
a natural curiosity, the full end will have been 
reached. 

Far too often the day with Mr. Burbank 
begins in care, advances in anxiety, closes in 
exhaustion. Not the least but often the greatest 
cause for this lies in the visits of the thought- 
less, people with the best and kindest of inten- 
tions but with lamentable lack of foresight. 
No man ever lived with wider and richer hos- 
pitality, with stancher friends; no man ever 
enjoyed intercourse with personal friends more 
keenly. Surely, even a man who has made a 
great place in the world, who in a certain 

290 




Mr. Burbank pollinating the blossoms of a plum tree 



A DAY WITH MR. BURBANK 

noble sense is the common property of the 
people, is entitled to his own privacies ; even 
more, from the standpoint of achievement for 
the welfare of the world, is entitled to his 
precious hours of labor, when a single 
thoughtless interruption may be the means 
of irreparable loss. 

Each day with Mr. Burbank is a composite, 
or perhaps better put, a mosaic; and no two 
are just alike. At certain seasons of the year, 
particularly should some great fertilizing test 
be under way, he is up with the sun, when the 
flowers are opening and the bees are a-wing 
and Nature is in her gentlest and most ingen- 
uous mood. For hours on such a day as this 
he must work unremittingly, until the pollen- 
ating of great numbers of plants has been 
completed and Nature has been made ready to 
be big with wondrous secrets. Commonly, he 
rises about seven o'clock and breakfasts at 
eight. If much worn on the preceding day, he 
may lie in bed until nine, or possibly ten 
o'clock, for he is an ardent believer in the 
efficacy of absolute physical and mental 
rest following periods of prolonged toil. He 
has proven for himself the recuperative and^ 

«91 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

indeed, curative, value of absolute physical 
relaxation. 

Work is always awaiting him, always, day 
in and day out throughout the entire year ; for 
he labors under a sky so genial that some 
gentle life of nature is stirring the whole 
twelvemonth long — some life in whose creation 
or transformation his hands are having a part. 
The workmen must be superintended day by 
day, even hour by hour, for this work is like 
none other — there is no pleasant smoothness 
and perfection of routine ; for at any moment 
may arise a problem so urgent of solution that 
the whole day's toil may need alteration to 
suit its insistent conditions. It is a thousand 
to one, too, that no man may solve the prob- 
lem but the master, the one whom these 
gentle workmen revere as few employers are 
ever revered. Possibly even before he has had 
his breakfast, he may be seen passing swiftly 
out of the house and making his way with 
rapid strides to some distant part of the 
grounds, where he may have seen from his 
window some new workman doing precisely 
the opposite from what he had been told to do. 
JSIany a time, in his ceaseless search for thQ 



A DAY WITH MR. BURBANK 

right men, he has taken on a workman highly 
recommended to him, only to discover him 
just in the nick of time doing something that 
would result in serious, perhaps irreparable, 
harm. Indeed, more than once such harm has 
been done, and the discharged man, perhaps, 
never knew what it was that caused his re- 
lease. Possibly, if some new weather situation 
has arisen, the order of the day may at once 
be changed to meet the new conditions. 

Some of the men are pulling out tiny weeds 
in the midst of long rows of delicate green 
plants no higher than a man's thuinb ; some 
are spreading some particular kind of soil 
over the earth where a test calling for this 
soil is to be begun ; some are hoeing out the 
weeds among larger plants, some are laying 
out beds, or sorting bulbs in the storehouse, 
or transplanting delicate plants from the 
greenhouse to outside beds, or any one of a 
thousand and one other duties. Every man 
is working as though his life depended upon it, 
and every one of them feels in his heart of 
hearts a strong fine throb of pride that he 
is thought capable, by the gentle man who 
goes in and out among them from day 

293 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

to day, to be an instrument in his hands 
for the furtherance of a great work 

But to come back to the breakfast which 
must be eaten some time, whether before, 
or after, or during the hours of early superin- 
tendence. It consists of simple food, a trifle 
old - fashioned as regards fads, but ample and 
wholesome and balanced. If for the moment 
there is nothing particularly pressing in the 
experimental plots, he gives an hour or two 
after breakfast to his more important cor- 
respondence. Time was when he attended in 
person to every letter that came, so absolutely 
conscientious was he toward this as toward 
every other demand of his lifework, but the 
day came when to do this and have any time 
for the thousands of other more imperative 
demands upon him was out of the question. 
So he shifts the main responsibility of cor- 
respondence upon other shoulders. And yet 
there still remain many letters, in the \^ery 
nature of the work itself, answering of which 
he may not easily delegate, — letters from men 
of prominence in the scientific world, letters 
from devoted friends, communications relative 
to important steps in this or that creation 

294 



A DAY WITH MR. BURBANK 

under way, — these he must dictate answers to 
direct, or make notations in his clear strong 
hand as to the answer to be sent. The 
magnitude as well as the extent of the work 
may often be indicated by a single day's mail. 
Letters arrive from all over the United 
States, from Mexico, from many South Amer- 
ican points, while there is scarcely an out- 
of-the-way place in Europe or Asia where 
fruits or flowers are cultivated that has not 
either some collector who is in constant touch 
with Mr. Burbank in supplying him with rare 
plants and seeds for experimentation, or some 
florist or horticulturist anxious to have some 
fruit or flower from the famous gardens of 
Santa Rosa. One large scrap - book contains 
an extensive list of foreign souvenir postal- 
cards bearing greetings from people he has 
never seen or heard of before. Very many 
letters come from Great Britain and her 
dependencies, the interest in Mr. Burbank's 
work being particularly deep among English- 
men. France and Russia send many letters, 
as do Italy and Germany, while many come 
from India, China, Japan and Austraha. 
There are communications, too, from crowned 

295 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

heads and others high of rank. One of the 
most important features of Mr. Burbank's 
correspondence is the matter of translations 
from foreign languages. It is interesting to 
note that it has become the custom in certain 
parts of Mexico and South America to make 
inquiry in regard to an American fruit or 
flower offered for sale, whether or not it is 
a '' Bivrhanco.'' If it is, it is accepted with- 
out question as being what it is represented 
to be. 

And the letters asking for aid and for 
situations, — their number is multitude. Long 
ago he was forced to adopt this form : 



Santa Rosa, California, 189 

Dear Sir: In reply to yours of : The 

constant stream of applications from all directions 
for a position has necessitated this printed slip, as I 
do not wish to be considered thoughtless in regard to 
these worthy applications, not one in ten thousand or 
which can be complied with. I employ my neighbors 
only, most of whom have been with me for many 
years, and cannot give steady employment to most or 
these even, and have no possible place for any one 
else. It would be exceedingly pleasant to me if I 
could employ the army who apply. My kindest and 
most heartfelt wishes are that each may find the em- 
ployment desired. Sincerely yours, 

LUTHER BURBANK 



296 




The original Burbank plum tree. INIillions of trees have 
been grown from it 



A DAY WITH MR. BURBANK 

Many letters which come make inquiries 
upon all manner of subjects near or remotely 
related to the work and suggesting calls for 
further consultation with IVIr. Burbank in 
person. To such this card is sent: 



ASK NO QUESTIONS WHICH YOU THINK 
CAN BE ANSWERED ELSEWHERE 

If a reply is desired wliich requires more space 
than a postal card affords, always enclose five dollars. 

All visitors to the home place are limited to five 
minutes each, unless by special arrangements. 

Ahsohdelif no visitors allov)ed at Sebastopol farm 

Everybody would be graciously welcomed, but the 
burden of entertaining the multitude has become so 
great that the experimental work has been very seri- 
ously crippled. 



The number of letters to be answered every 
year is upwards of forty thousand. In two 
months of one season fifteen thousand were 
received. 

Sometimes the midday meal is eaten at one 
o'clock, sometimes not until three or four in 
the afternoon, for if he has been compelled to 
lie late in the morning frequently but two 
meals a day are eaten. 

In the afternoon it is more than likely a 

297 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

second grist of correspondence will have to be 
attended to, while every moment not given to 
it must be devoted to the tests. It is not only 
the tests that have been under way for years 
that need attention in order to see that the 
growing plants are cared for, but new tests are 
constantly being started and the greatest care 
must be exercised in the details of the work. 
A single false pollenation, a single error in 
transplanting, a single mistake in uprooting a 
plant for a weed, may interrupt, even if it 
does not wholly destroy, a test of vast impor- 
tance. And one of the most wearing of all the 
anxieties is found in this: That there is not 
an experiment, however carefully it has been 
planned and however closely the future results 
of the test have been estimated, that may not, 
through some untoward act of man, or insect, 
or bird, or element, turn out badly in the end. 
Then all must be done over again and again, 
until the end sought for is reached. Nor is 
there a test, so great the compensation, which 
may not turn out, as many of them have, far 
more important to the world than had been 
anticipated. 

As soon as the afternoon correspondence is 

298 



A DAY WITH MR. BURBANK 

completed, he is out again in the proving 
grounds, and until the sun goes down there is 
always something which needs attention. 

But while this work fills in every moment 
of the day, be sure it is not all. In a single 
year fully six thousand people visit the 
grounds at Santa Rosa — as many would go to 
Sebastopol if they could get in. These visitors 
almost without exception want to see Mr. 
Burbank. No matter what else they want, 
they want to meet him. And it is natural and 
not culpable, but it is deplorable. They are 
easily divided into three classes: Those who 
come from curiosity, whom Mr. Burbank never 
sees if he can avoid it ; those who come froin 
genuine interest and who are content, when 
some attendant tells them Mr. Burbank can- 
not be seen, to look over the grounds ; those 
w^ho come by appointment and whom IMr. 
Burbank wishes personally to see. The first 
class is far and aw^ay larger than the other two 
put together and more difficult to handle. 
But there remains a large enough number 
whom Mr. Burbank feels that he must see, to 
consume very much of his tiine and to make 
direct inroads upon his strength. These are 

299 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

seen with all possible dispatch, in order that no 
time may be wasted. 

When the grounds are reached there is, just 
inside the white picket fence, a sign which 
reads : 



NOTHING FOR SALE 
ALL VISITORS CALL AT THE DOOR 



When the door is reached, there is another 
sign which reads: 



ALL VISITORS ARE LIMITED 

TO FIVE MINUTES EACH UNLESS 

BY SPECIAL APPOINTMENT 



In passing, I cannot too strongly emphasize 
the fact that Mr. Burbank's grounds are abso- 
lutely private. Still stronger placards than the 
above now appear at the entrance gates^ 
prohibiting all visitors without previous ar- 
rangement. This has been made imperative 
because of the steadily increasing stream of 
people who have been making a Mecca of his 
home. 

SOO 



A DAY WITH MR. BURBANK 

But, should a person succeed in running the 
gauntlet of these protective signs, there is still 
another provision which must be faced. When 
the inside of the door is reached, this slip is in 
readiness. I take the current one from the 
block on a day in May, 1905: 



Visitor jVo Dnte- 



What is your business with Mr. Burbank ?_ 



For whose benefit is this interview ?_ 
Your name ? 



Your address? . 
Remarks 



All visitors are limited to five minutes unless by 
special appointment. 

Mr. BurbaiiFs work is of such a nature that he 
cannot well be interrupted. 



Then, in case the visitor has particular and 
valid reasons for visiting Sebastopol, where the 
larger proving grounds are located, he faces 
this card which was not prepared looking to a 
source of revenue, but in order, if possible, to 
keep down the number of actual applications : 

^01 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 



TICKET OF ADMITTANCE TO BURBANK'S 
SEBASTOPOL EXPERIMENT FARM 

(Void unless dated and signed by tlie Proprietor) 

Date 



Signature 

Prices for Admittance of Visitors during the 
busy months of April, May, June, July, August and 
September: Each person, one hour, |lO; each per- 
son, one-half hour, $5; each person, one-quarter 
hour, $2.50. 

Admittance will be allowed at one-half the above- 
named prices during the other six months. When 
there are two or more in the same party, twenty-five 
per cent discount from these prices. 

Note. — Everybody would be graciously welcomed to the 
farm, but the hiirden of entertaining tlie multitudes has be- 
come so great that the experimental work has been seriously 
crippled. 



There is but one object in all these restric- 
tions, to protect Mr. Burbank both as to 
wastage of time and physical vitality. He has 
set apart the month of July, during which 
time there are likely to be slightly fewer 
demands upon his care in the actual work, as 
his reception month, when more freedom is 
allowed in the way of admitting visitors to 
the grounds at Santa Rosa. 

On certain days in the week Mr. Burbank 
leaves Santa Rosa about nine o'clock in the 
morning and drives over to Sebastopol, some 

30^ 




Cultivating the mammoth pieplant. Some leaves are th'-ec to four 
feet across. Mr. Burbaiik is the central fio-ure 



A DAY WITH MR. BURBANK 

eight miles distant. Here he devotes the 
entire day to overlooking the larger work of 
the main proving ground. More men are 
employed here than at Santa Rosa, as the 
work is more extensive. Great difficulty is 
experienced in getting men who can adapt 
themselves to the work. The day spent at 
Sebastopol is particularly hard, for the work of 
the week preceding must all be inspected and 
plans laid down for the following week. Here 
there must be constant care exercised that no 
mistakes be made, for mistakes here, where 
the tests have so far advanced that actual 
results are being reached, are fatal indeed. 
Hundreds of thousands of fruit trees of all 
kinds needing inspection; work upon berries, 
grapes, ornamental shrubs of many kinds ; 
extensive tests in flowers, on a scale larger 
than could be carried out at Santa Rosa; 
experiments in fast-growing trees, tests of 
plants which have been recommended from all 
parts of the world as suitable for further 
development or for combination with other 
plants, — these are some of the factors that 
unite to make the days spent at Sebastopol 
wearing to the very last degree. In so far as 

303 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

possible, the work is delegated ; still, very much 
of it cannot be given over to other hands but 
must be under the immediate eye of the one 
who has conceived the plan, who alone knows 
how it should be developed, who alone can tell 
the proper moment for action should a 
radical change at any time appear necessary. 

When the evening comes, it is a worn and 
tired figure that curls up upon a low couch in 
his little living-room, — tired physically no less 
than mentally, many a time worn to the very 
verge of exhaustion. An hour or so he lies 
silently resting, not asleep, for his mind is 
eternally turning upon the work before him, 
but relaxing in so far as possible. Even now 
he is not left to himself; for the messenger 
boy may still reach him; special-delivery 
letters come by night as well as day; tele- 
grams have no heart. 

But by nine o'clock, if all is well, he is in 
bed — the day is over. Another one will not 
be long delayed, fuller, it may be, of care. Yet 
all the days in this man's life are rich in the 
splendid consciousness of duty done, glorified 
by the joy of having helped the great primal 
forces of Nature to help mankind. 

304 



CHAPTER XIX 

HIS PERSONALITY 

^T^HERE are certain men whose lives are 
-■- so open and free that the innermost 
pages are disclosed at a glance. Certain others 
need only the lightning flash of circumstance 
or occasion to reveal phases of their life long 
hidden. Certain others remain the sphinx to 
the end. 

Luther Burbank belongs to no one of these 
classes, but rather to all of them. With noth- 
ing secretive in his nature, he yet has depths 
that his nearest friend does not fathom. A^^ill- 
ing at all times to be himself precisely as he 
is, indeed, more, never playing the hypocrite 
by cloaking his own estimate of his own deeds, 
though absolutely unspoiled by praise and 
impregnable to flattery, he is yet constantly 
disclosing some new and striking character- 
istic. Clarity itself, and frankly unreserved 
when he meets those who understand, he con- 
stantly baffles understanding by the subtlety 

305 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

of his thought. Some of those who have be- 
lieved they knew him most completely have 
found, even after the course of years, that they 
have not yet crossed the threshold. 

A slight, lithe figure, which would appear 
frail if it were not so well in proportion and so 
closely knit, a figure full of nervous strength ; 
hair slowly whitening, with a brown mus- 
tache slightly streaked with gray; intense blue 
eyes that are full of fire, or a-glint with earn- 
estness, or twinkling with merriment, or sad 
or gay or somber, as the mood passes ; a sensi- 
tive mouth and chin; the bronze of the west- 
ern sun upon his cheeks. It is the face of a 
poet, or a philosopher, or a sagacious man 
of affairs, or, in the nobler sense, a fine, true 
mystic ; for all of these, and more, he is bound 
into one. 

He is quick of movement, soft and gentle of 
speech, a rare conversationalist when in the 
mood, though rather inclined to draw others 
out than to advance his own views. Once 
started upon some subject of deep interest, 
however, and assured that his auditors are in 
sympathy, his words come swift at the bidding 
of his swifter thoughts. Sometimes in conver- 

806 



HIS PERSONALITY 

sation, if he be deeply stirred, he is impetuous 
in movement, emphatic in gesture, hardly able 
to confine himself to the bounds of modera- 
tion. And yet he never goes a hair's breadth 
outside the fine, strong line of truth that 
binds him like a thread of gold to all that is 
highest and noblest. When any topic is under 
discussion that takes root in his own life ex- 
perience, he speaks with great earnestness, and 
if there perchance be soine wrong that needs 
righting, he minces no words. 

He is swift but genial in repartee, generous 
in his praise of others, instant in his words of 
sympathy to one in trouble. At times when 
he is worn with prolonged bodily and mental 
toil at the crux of some great test, when every 
faculty of his being is pushed to the utmost 
limit, he may rise suddenly after a long period 
of rest upon the low couch in his room on the 
entrance of a friend, and then, if the conver- 
sation but have a nimble turn, he is suddenly 
aUve with animation, entering with zest into 
a story and laughing with the abandon of 
a boy. His wit conies out sprightly but never 
biting; his humor flows gi-aciously — it is never 
lethargic or ponderous. As swiftly as the con- 

307 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

versation shifts he is in touch with every 
change, discussing some deep problem of 
human hfe or dissecting a pseudo-scientific 
foible, or illuminating a scientific thought 
some other man has cloudily expressed, or 
cutting into some current fallacy of modern 
education or politics or religion, making an 
excision as deft as it is scientifically accurate. 
He is as zestful as a skilful surgeon over some 
remarkable case when he dissects a limb or 
the main trunk of theology, and he scarcely 
considers anesthetics necessary in such an 
instance; but no man is more reverent in 
the presence of true religion. He is never 
happier than in a care-free romp with a merry 
child, but he meets the most distinguished 
scientist with the gravest dignity. 

In any discussion of his own work, Mr. 
Burbank likes best of all to have specific, 
definite questions asked. The answers come 
without hesitation and in clear, understandable 
language. From time to time, when he first 
began selling his new creations, he issued 
catalogues descriptive of new fruits and 
flowers. They were models of their kind and 
greatly enjoyed by people in all quarters of 

308 



HIS PERSONALITY 

the globe. Captivating in their style and 
alluring in their contents, they were never 
marred by overstatement of excellencies. One 
is constantly struck by the clarity of his con- 
versation and the freshness and vividness of 
his language, and, while this has usually been 
the gift of all great scientific thinkers, it is es- 
pecially noteworthy in this instance because of 
the fact that while he was well grounded in 
rudiments and has read widely, he has not had 
the exhaustive literary training of the schools. 

He closed one of the very few public 
addresses he has ever given, in this wise; the 
words are characteristic: 

" Who can estimate the elevating and refin- 
ing influences and moral value of flowers, with 
all their graceful forms and bewitching shades 
and combinations of colors and exquisitely 
varied perfumes? These silent influences are 
unconsciously felt even by those who do not 
appreciate them consciously, and thus with 
better and still better fruits, nuts, grains and 
flowers will the earth be transformed, man's 
thoughts turned from the base, destructive 
forces into the nobler productive ones, which 
will lift him to higher planes of action toward 

309 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

that happy day when man shall offer his 
brother man, not bullets and bayonets, but 
richer grains, better fruits and fairer flowers. 

"These lines were penned among the heights 
of the Sierras, while resting on the original 
material from which this planet was made. 
Thousands of ages have passed, and it still 
remains unchanged. In it no fossils or any 
trace of past organic life are ever found, nor 
could any exist, for the world- creative heat 
was too intense. Among these dizzy heights 
of rock, ice -cleft, glacier -plowed and water- 
worn, we stand face to face with the first and 
latest pages of world creation, for now we see 
also tender and beautiful flowers adding grace 
of form and color to the grisly walls, and far 
away down the slopes stand the giant trees, 
oldest of all living things, embracing all of 
human history ; but even their lives are but as 
a watch -tick since the stars first shone on 
these barren rocks, before the evolutive forces 
had so gloriously transfigured the face of our 
planet home." 

At the dedication of a park which had been 
given to the children of a neighboring town, 
in the suburbs of San Francisco, in memory 

310 



HIS PERSONALITY 

of a child of the donor, Mr. Burbank made an 
address which I may briefly quote from as 
indicative not only of his devotion to children 
but of his ability to express a beautiful 
thought in graceful fashion: 

" I love sunshine, the blue sky, trees, flowers, 
mountains, green meadows, running brooks, the 
ocean when its waves softly ripple along the 
sandy beach, or when pounding the rocky 
cliffs with its thunder and roar, the birds of 
the field, waterfalls, the rainbow, the dawn, 
the noonday, and the evening sunset, — but 
children above them all. Trees, plants, 
flowers, they are always educators in the right 
direction, they always make us happier and 
better, and, if well grown, they speak of loving 
care and respond to it as far as is in their 
power; but in all this world there is nothing so 
appreciative as children, — these sensitive, quiv- 
ering creatures of sunshine, smiles, showers 
and tears." 

I may not better illustrate one phase of this 
many-sided man than to say, on the testimony 
of a friend, that the first time he looked upon 
the noble sweep of the Yosemite Valley he 
did not go into an ecstasy of expletives, but 

311 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

stood apart with his eyes filled with tears; or 
to note that he counts no day completed in 
which he has not said a cheery good -morning 
to his aged mother, now faring near the 
century line, looked after her witli the utmost 
devotion during all its hours, and tenderly 
said to her good-night at the going down of the 
sun, even though she sees such acts but dimly 
through the long mists of the years. 

1 have talked with many townsmen of this 
man, those who have known him in lean 
seasons when struggle was constant and the 
current strong, in other days when the praise 
of the world flowed high but never to sub- 
merge him ; and never a one but has been 
quick with the deep, strong words of praise 
for their townsman and neighbor, — not one 
but who, in quaint, crude words or more elabo- 
rate phrase, has pronounced him a man whose 
life stands above reproach, whose character is 
of the noblest type, whose heart is overflowing 
with that kindness that ever makes for malice 
toward none and charity for all. It sometimes 
happens that a man assigned by the world to 
a high position is held in scant esteem by 
the common people among whom he lives; 

312 



HIS PERSONALITY 

but 1 venture to say no man in public or 
private life has arisen who holds so high a 
place in the affection of his neighbors and 
fellow townsmen as this man, whom they have 
come to regard as the incarnation of the 
highest and best in human life. Whoso holds 
this praise too high shall but stay some days 
in the fair little city of Santa Rosa, a very 
bower of roses in a valley of beauty set in 
tlie midst of the emerald hills, and from day 
to day make search for one who shall be 
out of harmony with these words. Or whoso 
wishes to know how deeply he impresses 
those who see him but for an hour or a day, 
by the sincerity of his speech and the win- 
soineness of his welcome, let him search 
among the tens of thousands who have paid 
him call, be they high of rank or humble, 
and see if he may find one among them 
who does not say: 

"He was a man, take him for all in all, 
I shall not look upon his like again." 

So insistent are the demands of his work, — 
for there is no time in the year w^hen some 
test is not in progress requiring immediate 
and personal attention, — his vacations are few 

313 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

in number and of short duration. In thirty- 
five years he has not taken a vacation of a 
month's time at one period. He has never 
visited the East but three times, and then 
only on hurried trips. He has been invited to 
go to Europe to be the guest of prominent 
scientific men, but he has never been able to 
accept on account of the length of time he 
would be compelled to remain away from 
his work. His recreations are few in number, 
but no one finds keener enjoyment than he 
in such ones as he chooses, — a small party 
of jolly friends, a visit to some friend in a 
near-by town, a romp with a little child, a day's 
wandering, at rare intervals, amidst the city's 
kaleidoscopic scenes, a long, strong tramp up 
the mountains, a day at the sea of which 
he is so passionately fond, — these are his chief 
stands for recuperation in the long, hard battle. 
And yet it is not a wholly apt figure; for 
his life is rather one series of noble triumphs, 
all adding to the sum of human happiness. 
He is particularly fond of the society of 
young people, and he is held in the highest 
esteem by them ; with them he steadily 
renews his youth ; he is of the type that never 

314 



HIS PERSONALITY 

grows old. All manner of fun appeals to 
him, but no fun, — so called, — over which 
there is not spread the sweetest delicacy. 

In all his relations with others he is charac- 
terized by a winning gentleness. And yet he 
is swiftly roused at any show of deceit or 
sham. Kindliness, charity, modesty, tender- 
ness ; intuition ; enormous capacity for work ; 
unswerving devotion to a friend; intense 
absorption ; unwearying application ; steadfast- 
ness in his adherence to the right no matter 
how others may oppose, but with chivalrous 
tolerance of those who differ ; a broad, cheerful 
outlook upon life, ever seeking to find the 
good and ignore the evil; a wide, deep 
sympathy for all that makes for uprightness 
in individual, civic and national life; — above 
all, the subtle soul of a poet joined to the 
throbbing heart of a man: these are among 
the attributes that mark the personality of 
Luther Burbank. 

At times he is much given to epigrammatic 
speech: these are among many expressions: 

"No man ever did a great work for hire." 

"I hope that no one will ever be worse for 
my having hved 

315 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

"Ignorance is the only unpardonable sin." 

"The man who cannot say no, seldom gets 
the opportunity to say yes." 

"The greatest happiness in the world is to 
make others happy; the next greatest is to 
make them think." 

On the wall above his head where he sits at 
meat is a little placard which reads — the 
words from Emerson: 

"Write it on your heart that every day is 
the best day in the year. . . . No man has 
learned anything rightly until he knows that 
every day is Doomsday. . . . Today is a 
king in disguise. Today always looks mean to 
the thoughtless, in the face of a uniform 
experience that all good and great and happy 
actions are made up precisely of those blank 
todays. Let us not be deceived, let us unmask 
the king as he passes." 

No man could have done all the marvelous 
acts he has accomplished in the ennoblement 
of the earth unless he had had a deep, passion- 
ate love for all that is beautiful. Not all the 
years of unremitting study and research and 
tremendous toil have dulled, in the slightest 
degree, this love for the beautiful, whether it 

316 



HIS PERSONALITY 

be found in nature, or poetry, or art, or music, 
or in the rare blossominer of a human hfe. 

The world wtll never seem quite the same 
to you, after you have seen this man in the 
midst of his hfework ; the world will never be 
the same again, after his having lived in it ; it 
will have sustained an irreparable loss on the 
day he shall say it good-bye. 



317 



CHAPTER XX 

THE PLAN BOOKS 

XT is doubtful if there is a single scien- 
-^ tific man among the hundreds from this 
country and Europe, who have visited Mr. 
Burbank since his work became more widely 
known, or a single person among the many 
thousands of casual visitors, who ever heard 
of his plan books. 

In conversation with a university pro- 
fessor who was much interested in Mr. 
Burbank's work, but who, in common with 
some others, doubted if he were "scientific," 
this question was put to him by a layman : 

" If a man have great imagination, re- 
markable intuition, deep and wide knowledge, 
persistence, absolute sincerity ; and if this 
man accomplishes what no other man or set 
of men has ever accomplished in a given 
department in the molding of old and the 
creating of new forms of life, — is this the 
furnishing of a scientific man?" 

318 



THE PLAN BOOKS 

**ln part, — such a man should logically 
be a scientist ; but the records, how can he 
establish that what he has accomplished came 
through clearly defined lines ? In other words, 
has he ample and well - authenticated notes 
and data to prove that what he says is true ? " 

" In answer, suppose that you have first 
his word for it that he has accomplished 
everything in certain definite ways,— " 

"Yes," comes the interruption, "that is 
just the point, his M'ord for it. Now, he may 
be absolutely honest, but ordinary men for- 
get, they are influenced at a given point 
where their memory is not clear by something 
quite outside, — they become misty and they 
cannot tell how far they may be led astray. 
I find more and more in class-room work 
and in preparing material for publication, 
that I cannot rely upon memory." 

" But suppose it is not an ordinary man, 
one who does not forget, who has a memory 
as marvelous as his works ? " 

" Granted ; but let him try to prove that 
he followed a given course. How would INIr. 
Burbank, for example, prove to me that he 
took certain steps in a given test?" 

319 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

Then came a consideration of the plan 
books of Mr. Burbank, the most curiously 
interesting documents perhaps ever kept by 
a scientific man, a complete refutation in 
themselves of the doubter; — the professor 
had never heard of them. 

While these plan books were designed with 
no thought of scientific record as such, and 
are by no means such elaborate records as 
would have been kept had completeness been 
the aim, they are essentially and consistently 
scientific. They are a signal refutation of 
the contentions of a good many scientific men, 
who, like the university professor, have been 
unstinted in their praise of Mr. Burbank's 
achievements, but who have been unable to 
see their way clear to admit him to their 
charmed circle. Truth to say, though, in 
passing, they were all unaware that he, like 
all really great men in science, dwelt apart, 
beyond the walls of precedent and far across 
the stagnant moat of mere scientific record. 

These plan books are a clear, adequate, 
comprehensive record of the chief events in 
the life history of every test of importance 
Mr. Burbank has undertaken. They are not 

320 



THE PLAN BOOKS 

as full or as complete as he could have wished ; 
time was not given and money was not at 
hand to provide for the recording of all the 
interesting minor details. It must steadily 
be borne in mind that this great work has 
been carried on at a constant financial loss, 
and that every available cent of money has 
been required for the actual expenses of 
the tests themselves. Still, in addition to all 
the demands upon him, he has kept up these 
plan book records year in and year out, 
recording in them step by step the essential 
larger details of the hfe he has been molding. 
While they are curiously constructed, as 
unique as the man, they are definite, accurate, 
indisputable, scientific,— the most devoted 
adherent to scientific nomenclature could not 
have been more conscientiously accurate. 
Naturally, they were not made for the general 
public. They form a private record of the 
hfe history of the plants under test so pecu- 
liarly constructed, even though absolutely 
logical in their sequences, they would, in 
great part, be unintelligible without inter- 
pretation to any but the one who made them. 
JNIr. Burbank is in the midst of a great 
321 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

test. Events of supreme importance in the 
many tests under way are happening,^ — things 
move with relentless rapidity. Certain data 
must be at once recorded. He has a paste- 
board box at hand — he tears it to pieces, 
and on its brown surface in a bold, strong 
hand he makes his notation ; or it may be on 
the back of an old envelope, or it may 
be in the field note -book he always carries in 
the midst of such work, — it matters not what 
the medium, the record is the thing, and it 
is made with all haste. It may be the turn 
certain sets of leaves are taking, departing in 
the hybrid from the ways of their ancestors ; 
it may be the size or color or texture or 
date of ripening, or ultimate rejection of a 
fruit; it may be a record of the shape of its 
seed -cavity or an outline of its hemisphere; 
or it may be a note as to the tree trunk's 
development, or its departure from the normal, 
or some point of importance in the history 
of a graft, or the acidity, or sweetness, or 
uniqueness of the fruit itself. It may be the 
date of the opening of a flower, the length 
of its petals, the shape they assume, the height 
of the stalk upon a given date, the details of 

322 



THE PLAN BOOKS 

its ancestry showing how and when its parents 
were bred and their names and those of their 
own forbears. So it goes throughout the 
whole hfe history of a given plant, be it 
berry or flower or tree or vine. All the facts 
are accompanied by dates, nothing is left 
to conjecture. 

Generally the field record is transferred 
to the regular plan book, sometimes the 
information is preserved in its original form 
and placed between the leaves of the plan 
book, which holds many such loose sheets. 
A whole page in the plan book may contain 
data as to one test, sometimes continued to 
another page. The book for the Sebastopol 
tests is a large ledger nearly two feet in 
length. Any one of the pages containing 
data as to a given test is curiously interesting. 
It is covered from top to bottom with 
writing, dates and diagrams. These diagrams, 
or it may be inere ellipses or circles to enclose 
certain related facts, are usually drawn in 
red ink in the midst of the text. They may 
run out into the margin of the book, or they 
may be in the body of the page. They are 
irregular in form and location. They are, how- 

323 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

ever, like a high -school scholar's grammar 
diagram, all logically connected. The page 
itself presents a strangely crowded effect, a 
veritable maze. I considered a sample page 
somewhat in detail, and found that it had 
forty distinct diagrams and figures and over 
six hundred words of text. Page after page 
of this matter appears. From time to time 
additions are made as the plant progresses. 
When the final test comes and the plant is 
finished, heavy cross -lines are drawn over the 
page — the end has been reached. 

On one page is a large circle perhaps seven 
inches across. It represents the branch - spread 
of a tree. All over the circle are jottings 
showing where certain grafts are located on 
the tree, so that there can be no mistake. On 
the grafts, too, may be notations in the form 
of tags, but the record of the plan book shows 
absolutely where the graft is, — if the tag be 
lost, the record remains. Sometimes the nota- 
tions are so many upon a page that the writing 
is well - nigh microscopic inside certain tiny 
squares that are drawn in red or black ink. 
Here are kept, too, absolute data as to cross- 
ings in hybridization. The parents on both 

324 



THE PLAN BOOKS 

sides and their ancestry and the essential Hfc 
history of the progeny are given; nothing is 
left to chance. JNIany a scientific man has 
been utterly at a loss to know how this man 
knew what he was doing : this is the first 
public mention ever made of the manner by 
which he makes the records which scientific 
men have believed lacking. 

Now and then there will be a large open 
page on which will be a number of diagrams, 
or circles, all connected with each other and 
containing but a few words to each, showing 
how a certain plant has been bred up and 
what important facts developed in the course 
of its history. These diagrams are in red ink 
and the writing in pencil or black ink. When 
the end of a test is nearing and a certain plant 
has been selected, — it may be from among a 
hundred thousand, as the one best of all, — its 
record is accompanied by one or more large 
double crosses marked in deep black ink, which 
shows that this one plant is superior to all 
others. 

When a fruit, for example, has reached the 
point that it appears to be worthy of record, — 
it may be a peach, chosen from ten thousand 

325 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

seedling's or hybrids, — a page is given up to it. 
Here the method of record is extremely 
interesting and novel. The fruit is cut in half 
and laid in its fresh, juicy state upon the upper 
left-hand corner of the sheet. It is pressed 
firmly down upon the paper and a pencil is 
dravrn around it, defining absolutely its size. 
There is no recourse here to a photograph or 
to a sketch, — he is after absolute fact, and the 
fruit is the fact. Another rapidly drawn line 
on the inside discloses the seed -cavity. I have 
seen one of these records where the stain of 
the fresh fruit had remained upon the paper 
for five years. 

In the upper right-hand corner of the sheet 
is a name, some strange whimsical name which 
is used to identify the fruit until such time as 
it shall come up before the world in finished 
shape for its final christening. For a long 
time Mr. Burbank tried using numbers, but 
this proved impracticable, not only because of 
the liability to mistakes in transcribing but 
because the numbers became so large, on 
account of the extent of the tests, that they 
were unwieldy. One mistake in a number, also, 
might be fatal to the whole test. Again and 

S26 



THE FLAN BOOKS 

again in these plan books appears tne same 
persistent adherence to accuracy, indeed to 
scientific accuracy, if you will, a supreme 
devotion to the definite. So, numbers not 
proving satisfactory, he took fantastic names. 
Sometimes it is the name of a workman who 
is near at hand when the test is being made of 
record, but more often a peculiarity of the 
fruit or flower itself. Here are some names 
selected from among many: 

"Long Nose," "Pan Sweet," "Jim," "The 
Best Yet," "Christmas Giant," "Hill Top 
Sweet," "Weeping Yellow," "Rice Seed," 
"Snowball," "Old Juicy," "Beauty," "Left- 
over Sweet," "Miracle," "Giant," "Climax." 

Now and then upon some page will appear 
at the end of a test two words ; they sum up 
the results of perhaps a dozen years of testing: 
"No good." No matter how attractive or how 
nutritious a new fruit, if it has failed to come 
up to, and go a httle beyond the fruits from 
which it was bred, it must be rejected, and 
the two words of supreme condemnation must 
stand forever against it. 

As an illustration of the data on a given 
test, it may be noted that upon one sheet 

327 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

devoted to a flower there were notes as to the 
character and substance of the petals; the 
number of the petals ; the width of the whole 
flower; width of a single petal and its length 
measured to the one -sixteenth of an inch; the 
wddth of the central disc from which the petals 
spring, with its color; the average of a given 
number of blossoms; points as to the stem 
growth, and so on; with dates of observations 
and the like. For the next season there were 
similar notations showing what changes had 
taken place in the upward movement of the 
plant. One page was devoted to data as to 
a certain fruit, — when its buds appeared, when 
they began to swell, when they burst open, 
when the flowers came, when the fruit started, 
when it ripened, peculiarities and irregularities, 
and the like. On a page devoted to a certain 
lily test are close and accurate data as to the 
shape of the bulb at a given period, the 
description of the scales, their character, all 
the essential facts as to the condition at vari- 
ous stages of the test. Here and there will 
be other notations under date showing what 
other allied plants were doing at the same 
day, noted down for comparison 

328 



THE PLAN BOOKS 

On a work of such colossal scale another 
point of definiteness can not be overlooked, — 
the precise location of the various plants 
under test. For this purpose there are concise 
memoranda showing where each selected plant 
is growing. Sometimes it will be a certain 
direction in so many feet from some certain 
fixed monument, as a tree, or a fence -post, or 
the corner of a conservatory, or what not. 
The plant, when it is finally chosen from 
among its thousands of fellows, is given a 
white streamer of cloth to distinguish it, and 
there are the usual inscribed stakes to 
identity it, but any of these might be de- 
stroyed and the plan books contain the 
definite means for determining just where 
the plant is growing. When so very many 
tests are under way at the same time and 
the aggregate number of the selected plants 
is so large, it becomes necessary to have pre- 
cision and definiteness in some indisputable 
form. 

Now and again, sheets will be found in 
which the stages of a plant's progress are 
indicated by large capital letters — A B C , 
and so on — distributed over the page and serv- 

329 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

ing as quick guides to lead to any given step 
in the test. Everywhere throughout the plan 
books are notations showing the retrogression 
of a plant under test. Deficiencies no less than 
excellencies must be noted, in order that the 
life history may be complete. 

One of the most interesting pages is that 
devoted to the cactus experiments, recording 
the kinds of cactus under test, how they were 
crossed, dates as to planting, points as to 
development step by step, and the like. Some- 
times it will take an entire page to give the 
mere facts as to a plant's ancestry, showing in 
regular sequence the hybridizing steps it has 
taken, the region of the world from which it 
came, and the like. 

The plan book for the preliminary tests at 
Santa Rosa, where much of the work has its 
beginning, is smaller than the Sebastopol book 
but none the less interesting. Here are re- 
corded the earlier hfe-history events when the 
seeds are being sown and transplanted. Some 
of the pages of this book are an intricate maze 
of notations and diagrams, all presenting a 
bewildering mass of data to the on -looker but 
all clear and definite and instantly available to 

330 




The improved everlasting Hower to be used in millinery 



THE PLAN BOOKS 

the man who made the records. In some 
cases the data of the Santa Rosa books are 
even more minute and particular than those 
of the larger tests. 

]Mr. Burbank has a good many such books 
as these, covering the experiments of many 
years, embracing many thousands of words of 
notation. For some years when he was 
struggling to make both ends meet, he tested 
seeds for eastern dealers, receiving ten cents 
for each variety tested. This was work re- 
quiring accuracy and record of the strictest 
type: like his records of after years, it was 
scientifically and commercially exact. 

It will be seen, the more closely one studies 
the scope and sweep of this great work, that 
accuracy of record on essentials is imperative. 
A single error in this would throw out of gear, 
so to speak, the whole machinery of a test. 
The creator of the new fruit or vegetable or 
flower would be utterly unable to tell whether 
he was proceeding upon definite lines or 
running through a whole series haphazard, 
intermixing everywhere into other tests and 
renderinflf the whole invalid. First and above 
all, in a work of breeding carried on upon a 

331 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

small scale, accuracy of record must be had ; 
how much greater the need when the scope of 
the work transcends that of all the plant- 
breeders who have preceded him. A hint of 
the diversity that develops in a given test and 
a suggestion of the forces that must be kept in 
control and whose movements must be noted 
are seen in the fact that as much as a pint of 
pollen has been used in cross-fertilizing the 
flowers in a single lily test. The pollen from 
one flower would be not more than could be 
held upon the tip of a pen-knife blade, yet 
every one of the hundreds of thousands of 
plants that come from this gigantic crossing 
must come under the eye of the one who 
created them. 

It should also be borne in mind that 
thousands of photographs have been made in 
the midst of the tests, and, while not so 
complete as the photographic records under 
the new order of things, they are yet im- 
portant data in establishing the sequence of 
events. With the provision of ampler funds 
for the carrying on of the work, details will 
be recorded much more completely and the 
records will prove invaluable, both scien- 

832 



THE PLAN BOOKS 

tifically and economically. But they will not 
be more strictly scientific, even in the eyes 
of the academician, than these records which 
have been kept of leading events in the life 
history of some of the most wonderful plants 
that even were given birth upon the earth. 
If JNIr. Burbank had taken time to answer 
every criticism of his work or methods made 
by pseudo - scientific men of inadequate 
knowledge, he would have wasted many days 
that have been given to the ennoblement of 
the physical earth upon lines as strictly 
scientific as those followed by the most dis- 
tinguished scientists of this or any other 
century. But as real scientists have come to 
know the man and to study his methods, 
they have not hesitated to give him as great 
honor for his scientific attainments as for his 
marvelous accomplishments for the welfare 
of the race. I do not know that Mr. Burbank 
ever told any scientific man who ever visited 
him that he kept these plan books. It is 
more than likely that he never mentioned the 
fact ; it is only an incident in his Hfework. 
No doubt, had he given the matter thought, 
tellinff the scientific men that such records 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

existed, it would have been welcome informa- 
tion, an earnest to them of the scientific 
attainments of the man. 

But the fact that he has kept records, — 
absolute and academic, if you will, even if 
far less complete than he would have wished, — 
this is not what gives him place in the ranks 
of scientists. To find reason for this rank we 
must look beyond the recording of data. Any 
man with keen eyes and a note-book may 
make records — the discovery of new truths 
and the interpretation of old ones, the de- 
struction of errors, the illumination of earth's 
secret places, the extension of human knowl- 
edge, — these he beyond. 



834) 



CHAPTER XXI 

THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 

T OOKING backward over the achieve- 
-*-^ ments of Mr. Burbank, one might natu- 
rally be led to ask, What of the inner life of 
the man ; has it, too, shown marked lines of 
development ? 

The physical life of the world has been 
changed by him as perhaps no other man 
who has ever lived has changed it. In his 
study of the subtler life of Nature he has 
arrived at conclusions and developed theories 
and disproved so-called laws in so significant 
a manner as to entitle him to consideration 
among the foremost thinkers of his generation. 

No man, however prosaic by Nature, could 
share Mr. Burbank's Hfe-long series of ex- 
periments in plant improvement and plant 
creation without being more or less attracted 
to and influenced by the inner life of Nature — ■ 
the subtle, intangible, but none the less real 
life upon which man has been building 

335 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

theories and laying out laws since the dawn 
of creation. To Mr. Burbank himself, with 
his highly organized, sensitive, intellectual life 
and his intense imagination, these subtle 
forces of Nature have been of absorbing 
interest. Through the light of experience he 
has seen with refined vision far into the 
strange, deep life whose outward manifesta- 
tions have been the field of his life-work. 

He has not studied in an extensive and 
expensive laboratory, nor confined himself 
to the comfortable atmosphere of a conserva- 
tory. In point of fact, he has had no 
laboratory at all, save that of the earth and 
the air and the sun. He has lived among no 
spectacular surroundings. He has had the 
seeds, he has had the generations of plants, 
he has had the earth ; he has used these seeds 
and these plants and the earth as no man 
ever used them before. 

The result has been that not only has ne 
produced all these wonderful forms of life, 
but that, through the study of the inner 
life of Nature, he has arrived at conclusions 
radically different from some of those which 
may have been matured in the gentle atmos- 

336 



THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 

phere of the laboratory, or in the calm 
seclusion of the library. He has not been 
attempting to formulate any laws. He has 
not set out to overturn the conceptions of 
other men. He has carried forward his work 
with passionate eagerness for the truth. His 
creative work has been for the good of 
the world; his studies have also been for 
the welfare of man, never for the glorification 
of self. They have never been entered into 
with the spirit of the academician, or with 
any preconceived theories waiting to be 
put into laws. Plain, old-fashioned truth 
has been his seeking : If, in reaching the goal, 
he has been obliged to cast aside some of 
the impedimenta of the scientists, it has not 
been in anger, but because of haste. 

A^ery early in his career, even when he had 
but begun his preliminary business life, two 
words ever rang in his ears, How ? and Why ? 
Day by day he sent these words forward 
into the hidden realm of Nature, and day by 
day they came back to him laden with 
answers. How came it that a certain plant 
upon which he was conducting a given 
experiment had gathered to itself certain 

S37 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

attributes through centuries of life, while, at 
the same time, as steadily rejecting other 
attributes; just as successive generations of a 
given family gather and reject certain family 
traits? How much of it was heredity, how 
much of it environment, how much a direct 
mingling of these two, how much, if any, 
could be traced to neither? 

And then the other word. Why? Why 
was all this done, and why was it all so 
persistently veiled from human eyes? 

In the midst of the exacting toil as he 
worked among his plants, this constant study 
of Nature broadened his mind. Year by year 
his sight became more refined, his knowledge 
deeper. He read much upon the subject, 
particularly Darwin. He made the most 
careful study of the conclusions reached by 
other men who had sought for the secrets 
of Nature's life, and how they came to these 
conclusions. Sometimes noting that certain 
improbable conclusions had been reached 
from certain premises, he set to work to 
discover the soundness of the premises, only 
to find that they were unsafe to trust. He 
early discovered, also, that some of the men 

338 



THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 

whose rank was highest in the departments 
of science most nearly related to his work 
came to their conclusions from inadequate 
data. 

For example, one man would arrive at a 
certain conclusion, or law, if he chose so to 
designate it, from the facts developed in a 
series of experiments with a dozen plants, 
carried on in a garden or a conservatory. 
Possibly, from the study of these plants, 
their habits, their changes under breeding 
and selection, these conclusions would be 
held absolute and applicable to a far wider 
field than that in which these few individuals 
were found. Working with the same plant, 
a flower or a fruit as the case might be, 
Mr. Burbank arrived at absolutely opposite 
conclusions. But, in place of a dozen plants, 
he used a hundred thousand; in place of 
a corner in a garden or a narrow space under 
the glass of a hothouse, he used an acre 
of ground in the open ; in place of a dozen 
distinct plants from which to make con- 
clusions, he dealt with over three thousand 
species ; and thus he was able to command 
an outlook broader than man had ever 

339 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

had before. Willing at all points to yield the 
moment he was convinced of error, it was 
yet inevitable that his own sound judgment 
should tell him that when his vast experi- 
ments developed results diametrically opposed 
to the results of the scientists working in 
circumscribed quarters, he was bound to 
stand by his own. Twelve plants in a given 
test might do certain things in concert and 
thus apparently establish a law, but a hundred 
thousand plants, indeed, sometimes a million 
plants, in the same test by developing ab- 
solutely contrary conclusions, utterly set 
at naught the significance of tlie twelve. 
This may very clearly be seen in the results 
of his observations along the hues of the 
so-called Mendelian Laws. 

Mendel, a parish priest in Briin, Austria^ 
a devoted student of botany, prepared a 
paper in the year 1865 in which he showed, 
as a result of his years of investigation, that 
certain laws were bound to obtain in the 
breeding of plants. When two peas, for 
example, were crossed, two prevailing sets 
of characters or characteristics were developed. 
One of these he called "dominant," certain 

340 



THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 

prominent characteristics of the parent dis- 
closed in the offspring, as color of flower, 
length of stem, shape of leaves, form of seed, 
arrangement of flowers, and so on. Certain 
other parental characters he called "recessive," 
appearing in lesser number in the new 
plant, or disappearing altogether. These char- 
acteristics appeared in the offspring in an 
invariable ratio, that of three to one. Seventy- 
five per cent of the characters of the new 
plant, — form, color, development and so on, 
would be "dominant," twenty-five per cent 
would be "recessive." The recessive char- 
acters thereafter bred true, but the dominant 
ones produced progeny one-third genuine 
dominant, — which also bred true to their 
own type, and two-thirds cross-breeds, the 
latter, when self-fertilized, giving out the 
old ratio of seventy-five per cent " dominant " 
characters, twenty-five per cent "recessive." 
These "laws," so-called, would provide 
means for determining in advance what 
results would follow in the breeding of 
plants; and, if carried forward into animal- 
breeding, would be of inconceivable value. 
Quite generally throughout Europe these 

341 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

laws have been accepted by the scientific 
world. 

Over and over again, through a series 
of many years, dealing with millions of 
plants and upon a scale which dwarfs all 
other experimentation, Mr. Burbank has 
shown the total inadequacy of these " laws." 
At his home in Santa Rosa stands a row of 
walnut trees, already referred to. These may 
be taken as a fair illustration of the manifold 
facts bearing on the points which have been 
developed by him. Instead of following any 
set proportion or ratio, the parental character- 
istics appeared in the children with absolutely 
no regard for law or even order, while many 
new characters were developed. Thousands 
of different forms were assumed by the leaves, 
for example, absolutely unlike the forms 
of the parent leaves. The nuts which came 
from the new trees were often wholly unlike 
those of either parent ; indeed, very frequently, 
they were wholly different from any walnuts 
ever known before. Sometimes there were 
five leaves on a stem, sometimes twenty or 
thirty, sometimes fifty. Many assumed, too, 
a most delicious fragrance, a character wholly 

342 



THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 

lacking in either of their forebears. Nor 
did the new trees show any similarity in 
growth to the old, a new tree in thirteen 
years having grown six times as large of 
girth and six times as tall as the parents had 
grown in twenty-eight years. 

Here, as in hundreds of cases all through 
his career, the "laws" have been shown not 
to apply, save in rare instances, by the evidence 
accumulating in the tests carried on upon so 
colossal a scale. The old laws were announced 
upon much such reasoning as this: Here 
are ten or twenty or even a hundred men; 
a certain number of them will yield to 
temptation of a certain type, a certain other 
per cent will stand fast: seventy-five of 
a hundred children born of vicious parents 
will grow up scoundrels, twenty-five per 
cent saints. The instances, for illustration, 
develop as predicted, but outside the hundred 
examples lie ten million others, influenced, 
as in the case of Mr. Burbank's plants, by 
a million hereditary tendencies and a million 
events of environment leading to totally 
different ends, setting at naught the inferences 
to be drawn from the hundred. 

343 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

He would welcome, with the eagerness 
of any lover of truth, any confirmation of 
law, for his whole life is pledged to law. 
He had no ulterior purpose in disproving 
the INIendelian laws : in point of fact, he 
had disproved their universal applicability 
years before he knew they existed. 

Mr. Burbank, in another instance, has 
brought to light the absurdity of reasoning 
from inadequate data. Leading scientists 
have maintained, and their followers have 
added the weight of their evidence, that 
" acquired characteristics are never trans- 
mitted." In the limitless fields of operation 
before him, IMr. Burbank has not only 
disproven this over and over again, but 
has established the opposite, that acquired 
characteristics are the only ones that are 
transmitted. 

Another theory, now widely accepted by 
scientific men, the theory of mutation, or 
saltation, new forms of life being produced 
by springing from the parents by a sudden 
leap or bound, evolution thus going on by 
rare and sudden leaps, appears to have been 
overthrown by Mr. Burbank. Instead of 

344. 




Leaves of blackberry hybrid, all p-rown from seed of one plant, 
showinLf the remarkable variation 



THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 

any law or other force governing these 
pecuhar mutations, — which mutations, it has 
been held, produce new and stable varieties 
from which Nature selects those which are 
fit, — INIr. Burbank, times without number, 
has produced these strange mutations at 
will. They can be produced, he says, by 
anybody who systematically sets to work to 
disturb the life habits of the plants. Thus 
tlie peculiar phenomena which scientific ob- 
servers on a small field have so sedulously 
studied, and have at last come to consider 
the result of a supreme act of Nature, are 
entirely within the province of any market- 
gardener or amateur plant- breeder. In ad- 
dition to this, he has demonstrated that 
that which the scientists have called mutations 
are not periods in the plant life at all, but 
only states or conditions, the result of heredi- 
tary tendencies and environments. 

Putting the matter in condensed form 
he says : 

"By crossing different species we can form 
more variations and mutations in a half 
dozen generations than will be developed by 
ordinary variations in a thousand generations." 

345 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

It is but natural that out of all tne 
intimate relationship he has borne to Nature 
and out of all his many years of intense 
study of her inner life upon so grand a scale, 
he should have reached certain well-defined 
theories. One of these pertains to heredity, 
a term at best vague, which has been loosely 
held. Out of the years of his investigations, 
carried on upon such a colossal scale, he has 
established tlie principle that heredity is 
" the sum of all the effects of all the en- 
\'ironment of all past generations, on the re- 
sponsive, ever-moving life forces; or, in other 
words, a record kept by the vital Principle 
of its struggle onward and upward from 
simple forms of life; not vague in any re- 
spect, but indelibly fixed by repetition." 

He condenses this into the statement : 
Heredity is the sum of all past environment. 

Heredity now becomes something far 
different from what it had before been held 
to be. " Every plant, animal and planet," he 
holds, "occupies its place in the order of 
Nature by the action of two forces, — the 
inherent constitutional life-force with all its 
acquired habits, the sum of which is heredity ; 

346 



THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 

and the many complicated outside forces or 
environments. To guide the interaction of 
these two forces, both of which arc only 
different expressions of the one eternal 
force, is, and must be, the sole object of the 
breedei", whether of plants or animals." 

He speaks of a vital Principle. He does 
not attempt to establish its essence or 
identity, but he says : 

"When simple cells become joined together, 
mutual protection is assured, and we know 
that they exhibit organized forces in new 
directions which w^ere impossible by any 
of the individual cells not associated in a 
cell-colony with its fellows. These cell- 
colonies will, if environment is favorable, 
increase in strength, while colonies less favor- 
ably situated may be crippled or destroyed. 
We see this natural selection in all life, every 
day all around us. But this is only one of 
the many forces at work in the upward, 
outw^ard and onward movement of life." 

Other men who have gone deeply into 
the inner life of Nature have given the 
world elaborate systems by which to account 
for and interpret many of the acts of Nature. 

347 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

It seems but fair to say that very much of 
these systems has been built up upon a 
slender base of experimentation. From his 
unparalleled opportunities of observation he 
arrives at certain conclusions. He does not 
ignore the Survival of the Fittest or the 
principles of Natural Selection, but he goes 
beyond them. The grand principal cause 
of all existing species and varieties of earth, 
sea and air, he holds to be the Crossing of 
Species. Upon this point he says : 

"The very existence of the higher orders 
of plants which now inhabit the earth has 
been secured to them only by their power 
of adaptation to crossings, for through the 
variations produced by the combination of 
numerous tendencies, individuals are pro- 
duced which are better endowed to meet 
the prevailing conditions of life. Thus, to 
Nature's persistence in crossing do we owe 
all that earth now produces in man, animals 
or plants ; and this magnificently stupendous 
fact may also be safely carried into the 
domain of chemistry as well ; for what are 
common air and water but Nature's earlier 
efforts in that line, and our nourishing foods 

348 



THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 

but the result of myriad complex chemical 
affinities of later date? 

" Past tendencies must fade somewhat 
as the new ones are added, and as each 
individual has ancestors in untold numbers, 
and as each is bound to the other like the 
numerous threads of a fabric, individuals 
within a species, by thus having very numer- 
ous similar lines of heredity, are very much 
alike ; yet no two are just alike. Cross two 
species and see what the results will be : 
Sharp mutations and variations appear, not 
in the first generation, as the two are bound 
together in a mutual compact, which, when 
unloosed by the next and succeeding gen- 
erations, will branch in every direction as 
the myriad different lines of heredity combine 
and press forward in various new directions. 
A study of plants or animals belonging to 
wddely different species and even genera 
which have been under similar environment 
for a long time will always show a similarity 
in many respects in the various means they 
are compelled to adopt for defense in the 
preservation and reproduction of life. Desert 
plants often ha^'e thorns, acrid qualities and 

349 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

reduced foliage surface, while in moist cli- 
mates thorns are seldom seen, and foliage 
is more abundant and not so often acrid 
or distasteful. Similar environments produce 
similar results on the life-forces, even with 
the most distantly related plants or animals. 
This fact alone should be proof enough, 
if proof were still needed, that acquired 
characters are transmitted, even though in 
opposition to numerous popular theories. 
All characters which are transmitted have 
once been acquired. The life -forces are con- 
stantly pressing forward to obtain any space 
which can be occupied, and if they find 
an open avenue, always make use of it, 
as far as heredity will allow." 

In this new century the new man comes, 
discarding the narrow canvases of the studios, 
and, upon the great canvas of the earth 
itself, he traces the supreme function of 
Nature, the Crossing of Species; and with 
this, the working of a vital Principle eternally 
recording Heredity, that sum of all past 
environments. He sees all ]\Iotion, all Life, 
all Force, all so-called IMatter, following the 
same law of heredity in plant- and animal- 

350 



THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 

life, a forward movement toward attractions, 
through hnes of least resistance. 

Summing up, he says: 

"My theory of the laws and underlying 
principles of plant creation is, in many 
respects, opposed to the theories of the 
materialists. I am a sincere believer in a 
higher power than man's. All my investi- 
gations have led me away from the idea of 
a dead material universe tossed about by 
various forces, to that of a universe which 
is absolutely all force, life, soul, thought, or 
whatever name we may choose to call it. 
Every atom, molecule, plant, animal or planet, 
is only an aggregation of organized unit 
forces, held in place by stronger forces, thus 
holding them for a time latent, though 
teeming with inconceivable power. All life 
on our planet is, so to speak, just on the 
outer fringe of this infinite ocean of force. 
The universe is not half dead, but all alive." 



351 



CHAPTER XXII 

HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 

T| F it be difficult accurately to assign a man 
-■- to his final place in the world within a 
generation, or even a century, of his death, it 
is far more difficult properly to locate him 
while still in the flesh. At the same time, if 
the deeds done have been apart from those of 
other men, and of commanding significance, 
without duplication in their sweep in history, 
we may, by some consideration of his accom- 
plishment and some setting forth of his men- 
tal furnishing, fairly suggest something of the 
estimate posterity may place upon him. 

First among all other things, Luther Bur- 
bank is unique among men in his knowledge 
of Nature and in his manipulation and inter- 
pretation of her forces. Other men have been 
plant -breeders and have produced remarkable 
results in improved fruits and flowers. They 
have achieved a merited reputation; indeed, in 
some cases this high reputation has passed on 



HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 

into a certain measure of fame. Some of these 
have been working along strictly scientific 
lines, others have been enthusiastic horticul- 
turists or seedsmen, preeminently practical 
and using agencies to reach certain desired 
ends without thoufj^ht of the rationale of their 
actual instruments and methods, or any esti- 
mate of the forces at work. These latter men 
are artisans in plant -breeding, building in 
many a case beautiful and important works. 
But ]Mr. Burbank has not only created 
plants and improved them upon a colossal 
scale, but he has, at the same time, studied 
nature with infinite patience and skill, observ- 
ing her manifestations, analyzing her laws, 
and defining and interpreting her functions. 
His life-work has been primarily two-fold in 
its sweep : First, embracing the widest possible 
service to the world ; and, second, accomplish- 
ing this service under the most exacting and 
persistent adherence to scientific truth. He is, 
in his department of life, scientist and philoso- 
pher and plant -breeder and horticulturist 
bound into one. He has not confined his 
study, as other men have, to a narrow field. 
All the great experiments he has carried on 

353 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

are in a certain sense similar in character, but, 
at the same time, each is different from each 
otlier one and each one leads into new and 
untrodden paths. He is preeminently an ob- 
server as well as a man of rare intuition and 
wonderful power of memory. He not only 
notes those essentially obvious characteristics 
which the average man may see, and assigns 
them unerringly to their proper place, but he 
looks further on and deeper into the subtler 
life of nature and, as unerringly, assorts and 
ehminates and assigns. He adds all these 
manifestations of nature to the sum of all his 
experiences, and from them all he draws for 
his material for his own mental furnishing 
and equipment. 

I have ridden with him over the road to 
Sebastopol on fair winter days when the 
earth was green and beautiful, and have 
many a time been struck by the swiftness 
with which he would turn from the dis- 
cussion of some deep problem of human 
life to note the peculiar brilliancy of the 
song of some early linnet in the hedge; or to 
point out the fact that the crimson-winged 
blackbird on the fence was tardy this season 

354 



HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 

in putting on his colors ; or to call attention to 
some peculiarity of a parasitical moss growing 
upon a huge liv^e-oak; or to point out how a 
certain piece of road making in progress should 
be done to secure the best results for economy 
or permanancy ; or swiftly to note some geo- 
logical sign along the way that proved the 
theory that this beautiful valley hard by the 
Pacific was an arm of the sea not longer ago 
than the day in the winter of 1577 when Sir 
Francis Drake, harassing many seas upon his 
buccaneering voyages, sailed over the very 
ground we were traveling over on his way up 
the great bay of San Francisco. Then swiftly 
backward his thoughts fly to the subject 
under consideration, — perhaps the elusive but 
fascinating phenomena that have their mani- 
festation in the acts of the subliminal self, or 
the curious coincidences of mental telepathy, 
or the survival of the soul after death, or some 
acute problem in sociology, or some topic 
broadly religious or humanitarian. In any 
such discussion, one must steadily be impressed 
by the clarity of his mental vision, by the 
neatness and precision of his language, by the 
cogency of his thought. 

355 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

It has become the academic fashion to take 
the ground that, unless a man is a man of 
record, unless he keeps a close and systematic 
note-book, so that at any given time he can 
refer authoritatively to any given step in a 
given research and show precisely what the 
conditions and what the tendencies at that 
moment, he cannot be classed a scientist. In 
the unusual sweep of his lifework, unusual in 
its results as well as in his understanding of its 
inner life, Mr. Burbank has steadily set at 
naught this contention. He has not kept such 
records of his work as should have been kept, 
— and no one better than himself knows and 
laments this fact, — such records as his larger 
opportunities now provide ; but the keeping of 
these records in the past would not have made 
him a scientific man, — they are incidental, 
even if important. He has not disdained rec- 
ords, he simply has not had time to make 
them himself or money to hire others to make 
them, and yet in his plan books, elsewhere 
noted, — books which probably not one man in 
ten thousand who has visited him ever heard 
of, — he has been eminently scientific, even 
from the standpoint of tlie academician 

dm 



HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 

But, in considering Mr. Burbank's place 
in the world, it must steadily be borne in 
mind that he is primarily not a mere recorder 
or reporter of facts. Two men stand in the 
presence of a great historic event, it may 
be the signing of a treaty for international 
peace, or the elevation of a prelate of the 
church, or the inauguration of a president, 
or the crowning of the King in the historic 
Abbey by the slow -moving Thames. One 
man carries a camera, the most perfect of 
its kind, ready to reproduce everything that 
transpires, accurate to the verge of painfulness. 
The other is making mental, and, so far as 
may be, manual sketches upon paper, the 
basis of future action ; one is a photographer ; 
the other a painter. One gives a record of 
the event, exact to a nicety, perfect in detail, 
truthful in outward exposition, but as devoid 
of soul as the sensitized plate upon which 
the scene is printed ; the other paints a 
masterpiece in which the splendid scene 
reappears in its proper perspective with 
non-essentials eliminated, with essentials in 
proportion, and, over all and through all, 
the very soul and spirit of a noble historic 

357 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

event. One records, the other creates; one 
is the perfection of mechanism, the other 
is the incarnation of truth; one is purely 
and everlastingly material, the other is as 
everlastingly spiritual. 

The average so-called scientific man, the 
one who has made the course of the uni- 
versity with distinction, but who puts his 
knowledge to no higher purpose than to record 
certain facts which he accumulates and tries 
to set in logical sequence beyond certain 
other facts, is an important man in the 
construction of the framework of science, 
but, slightly to change the figure for con- 
sistency's sake, he is the photographer, the 
recorder, while Mr. Burbank and every other 
man along down the long line of noble 
descent, the clans of Darwin and Spencer, 
and Huxley and Tyndall, — is the painter, 
the creator. 

Reference has been made to Mr. Burbank's 
attitude toward modern education. It should 
not be thought that, because he has not had 
a university training, therefore he is inimical 
to such training. It is not the training in 
itself that he antagonizes or deplores, but 

358 



HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 

the character of the training, often, to his 
mind, in the department to which he has 
given his hfe, fatally deficient, tending toward 
artificiality and veneer, as well as toward a 
certain specialized one-sidedness. He has 
taken his place in the world on this point 
alongside many other men of prominence 
who are now secretly or openly opposed to 
certain superficial tendencies in modern edu- 
cational life, and stands for such a revision 
of curricula as shall leave the average college 
and university graduate master of certain 
essential fundamentals of which too often 
he is lamentably ignorant. In discussing the 
moral and religious influence of science, 
Herbert Spencer takes occasion to quote 
Tyndall on inductive inquiry, and the latter's 
words are so illustrative of the life of Mr. 
Burbank that they are here quoted : 

" Inductive inquiry requires patient in- 
dustry and an humble and conscientious 
acceptance of what Nature reveals. The 
first condition of success is an honest recep- 
tivity and a willingness to abandon all 
preconceived notions, however cherished, if 
they be found to contradict the truth. Believe 

359 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

me, a self-renunciation which has something 
noble in it, and of which the world nev^er 
hears, is often enacted in the private ex- 
perience of the true votary of science." 

The recognition of Mr. Burbank was at 
first slow because he has steadfastly refrained 
from courting publicity, but it has proceeded 
upon steadily advancing lines. One of the 
most satisfying public acts in his career so 
far, because it was an act of his fellows, was 
the striking of a gold medal in his honor, 
in INIay, 1903, on the part of the California 
Academy of Sciences, a notable body of 
western men. It was the date of the fiftieth 
anniversary of the establishment of the 
Academy. Mr. Burbank was chosen as the 
one whom this commemoration medal should 
honor. On the obverse of the medal are 
the words : 



California Hcabemj* of Sciences; 

jaituarbeb to 

Uutter 2^urbanfe 

iFor Meritorious; Work in JDebeloping ^cto 

irorms; of pant Hife. M^V 18, X903 

360 



HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 

On the reverse is a design of the goddesses 
Pomona and Flora placing a laurel wreath 
upon the head of a young man engaged in 
budding a fruit tree. 

He has received visits from many of the 
leading scientific men of two hemispheres, 
who have been generously appreciative of 
his great work, as well as thousands of calls 
every year from people in other walks of 
life from many different countries ; he has 
received letters from great men throughout 
the world, among them a number of crowned 
heads, some speaking words of praise for his 
scientific achievements, some bearing elo- 
quently upon his service to mankind ; he 
has been given many recognitions at county, 
state and worlds' fairs ; he was elected the 
first honorary member, out of a possible 
ten, of the Plant and Animal Breeders' 
Association of the United States and Canada ; 
he is a Fellow of the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science and an 
honorary member of numerous scientific 
societies ; the degree of Doctor of Science 
has been conferred upon him by Tufts 
College ; he is a lecturer on scientific plant- 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

evolution in Leland Stanford University; ne 
has been granted a subvention of a hundred 
thousand dollars by the Carnegie Institution. 
He has not attempted to fathom all the 
depths that Nature holds, but he has so 
sounded those depths he has selected for 
investigation, and so set his life to the 
advancement of the world, that his place 
must not only be a noble one today, but a 
still more commanding one tomorrow. It is 
not too much to say that volumes could 
be prepared from the newspaper references 
to Mr. Burbank made in the past year or two. 
The following quotation from a New Jersey 
newspaper, the "News," of Newark, may be 
taken as a fair summing up of the more 
serious popular estimates of his life and 
achievements : 

"Luther Burbank, ^ — until recently an 
unknown name, — has bestowed upon the 
world a greater increment of values, in things 
done and things inevitable, which are for 
the permanent betterment of civilization, than 
any score of celebrities in this decade or in 
any previous decade or century, when the 
fact is submitted to ultimate analysis. He 

362 



HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 

has produced more new plant-life, fruits, 
grasses, trees and flowers, than any other 
man who has ever lived. He has done with 
an intelligent purpose, clearly grasping its 
end and on a large scale, what a few have 
done accidentally or capriciously, on a small 
scale. He comes nearer to being what may 
be called a creative mind in the product of 
organic growth than any other scientific 
worker on record. . . . His name is bruited 
today all over the civilized world. Hundreds 
of able experimentalists are no doubt eagerly 
following in the path he has blazed. What 
science will accomplish, thus set in motion, 
the wildest imagining may easily fail to 
grasp. The reflex of all future achievement 
will throw back its glory to brighten Burbank's 
aureole, for he will have been the master 
and protagonist. Is it too much to say that 
among the great benefactors of their race 
Luther Burbank will be unique in the splendor 
of his monument? That can never crumble 
while sunshine, air and soil carry on their 
chemistry." 

Hugo de Vries, the Dutch botanist, when 
in this country in 1904, said of IMr. Burbank 

363 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

at a banquet which he attended in San 
Francisco : 

"The flowers and fruits of CaHfornia are 
less wonderful than the flowers and fruits 
which Mr. Burbank has made. He is a great 
and unique genius. The desire to see what 
he has done was the chief motive of my 
coming to America. He has carried on the 
breeding and selection of plants to definite 
ends. Such a knowledge of Nature and such 
ability to handle plant-life would be possible 
only to one possessing genius of a high order." 

That which distinguishes Luther Burbank 
is four-fold in its bearing — 

1. He is unique in his knowledge of 
Nature and in his physical manipulation 
and interpretation of her forces. 

2. He has already accomplished in his 
chosen line of life more than any other man 
who has ever lived ; indeed, when the full 
sweep of all his achievements shall finally 
come into view, it may not be unfair to say 
that not all the plant-breeders who have pre- 
ceded or accompanied him have done so much 
for the world. He has done more in a gener- 
ation in creating new and useful types of 

364 



HIS PLACE IN THE WORED 

plant -life than Nature, unaided, could have 
done in a niillenium, — more, indeed, than 
Nature, unaided, would ever have accom- 
plished. 

3. His direct influence upon the physical 
character of the world is no less significant 
than his influence upon his contemporaries. 

4. He is not only a great power in the 
physical manipulation of Nature, but he is 
a deep and accurate thinker and a man of 
indisputable scientific attainments. 

I cannot better conclude this necessarily 
imperfect showing than by the following hy 
David Starr Jordan, president of Leland 
Stanford University, in answer to a request 
as to the place of Luther Burbank in the 
world : 

" It seems to me that IMr. Burbank, while 
primarily an artist, is, in his general attitude, 
essentially a man of science. Academic he 
doubtless is not, but the qualities we call 
scientific are not necessarily bred in the 
academy. Science is human experience tested 
and set in order. Within the rano-e of 
molding plants, INIr. Burbank has read care- 
fullyj and thought carefully, maturing his 

36$ 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

own generalizations and resting them on 
the basis of his own knowledge. Within the 
range of his own experience he is an original 
and logical thinker, and his conclusions are 
in general most sound. He is not a physiolo- 
gist, still less a histologist, and the phenomena 
of heredity as shown in cell - division and 
cell - multiplication he has not studied for 
himself. The researches of Weismann and 
those suggested by his theories of heredity 
Burbank has given little attention to, and 
he has, therefore, a confidence in the inheri- 
tance of acquired characters, such as effects 
of environment, which most biologists of 
today do not share. On the other hand, many 
of the best of them would fully agree with 
Burbank. 

"In his field of the application of our 
knowledge of heredity, selection and crossing 
to the development of plants, he stands 
unique in the world. No one else, whatever 
his appliances, has done as much as Burbank, 
or disclosed as much of the laws governing 
these phenomena. Burbank has worked for 
years alone, not understood and not appre- 
ciated, at a constant financial loss, and for this 

366 



HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 

reason, — that his instincts and purposes are 
essentially those of a scientific man, not of 
a nurseryman nor even of a horticulturist. 
To have tried fewer experiments and all of 
a kind likely to prove economically valuable, 
and finally to have exploited these as a 
nurseryman, would have brought him more 
money. In his own way, Burbank belongs in 
the class of Faraday and the long array of 
self-taught great men who hved while the 
universities were spending their strength on 
fine points of grammar and hazy conceptions 
of philosophy. His work is already an in- 
spiration to botanists as well as horticulturists, 
opening a new fine of research in heredity, 
as well as a new field for economic advance. 
Already his methods are yielding rich results 
in the hands of others. We shall, by such 
means, find much more than we now know of 
the evolution of organisms, while the improve- 
ment of organisms for the use and pleasure 
of man is yet in its infancy. 

" Scientific men belong to many classes ; 
some observe, some compare, some think, and 
some carry knowledge into action. There 
is need for all kinds and a place for all. With 

367 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

a broader opportunity, Burbank could have 
done a greater variety of things and touched 
hfe at more points; but, at the same time, 
he would have lost something of his simple 
intensity and fine delicacy of touch, — things 
which the schools do not always give and 
which too much contact with men sometimes 
takes away. 

" Great men are usually men of simple, 
direct sincerity of character. These marks 
are found in Burbank. As sweet, straight- 
forward, and as unspoiled as a child, always 
interested in the phenomena of Nature, and 
never seeking fame or money or anything 
else for himself. If his place is outside the 
temple of science, there are not many of 
the rest of us who will be found fit to enter." 

All that Luther Burbank has received, — 
observation of the keenest type, unsurpassed 
intuition, knowledge, understanding, scientific 
attainment, in a word, genius of the highest 
order for the interpretation of the work to 
which he has devoted his life, — he has accepted 
as a sacred trust, not to be dissipated but 
to be administered with unswerving fidelity 
to the common interests of mankind, 

368 



CHAPTER XXIII 

THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

TJEFORE presenting somewhat in detail 
-*-^ the inception, de^'elopment and cuhnina- 
tion of the thornless opuntias, — in some ways 
the most important work Mr. Burbank has 
ever accomphshed, — a word of explanation on 
one point seems needed. Several years ago it 
was Mr. Burbank's hope that the cactus, which 
promised to regenerate the waste places of the 
earth and provide a new food for man and 
beast, might be given to the world free of all 
cost. All through his life, as has been set 
forth in these pages, the ruling principle has 
been sharply defined : How may the greatest 
good be done to the greatest number? It is a 
day when no harm will follow laying special 
emphasis on such a principle. Having received 
a liberal subvention from the Carnegie Insti- 
tution for the furtherance of the work, it would 
naturally follow that he would thus stand 
relieved of care and able to avail himself of 

369 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

that ease and personal comfort which money 
brings. 

But when the balance of the first year 
under the subvention, recently closed, was 
struck, it was found that IMr. Burbank had 
not only put back into the work the amount 
set apart for the maintenance of the tests un- 
der way and projected, had not only added to 
this the amount which was to be set apart as 
his own salary, but had expended in the carry- 
ing forward of the larger work some six hun- 
dred dollars additional out of his own pocket. 
In other words, he had given up his salary and 
drawn upon his own funds as well. 

When it came to the distribution of the 
cactus, which had cost heavily during the 
twelve years it had been under test, it was 
found that, with all the other attendant ex- 
pense pressing heavily upon him, it would be 
impossible to carry forward this work without 
special remuneration. For this reason the cac- 
tus was placed on sale. Had he wished to 
make money out of the new cactus, it would 
have been a very simple act to organize a 
modern corporation, provide for promotion 
fticilities, restrict production, maintain prices, 

370 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

and control output, squeezing out of the enter- 
prise every dollar it would yield. A fortune 
could thus have been made, and perhaps, to 
some, it would seem a logical and legitimate 
enterprise. But it would not have been IMr. 
Burbank's way of doing things; it would have 
been to stultify himself. 

As there are no monopolistic restrictions 
upon the output, and as the cactus is of such 
remarkably rapid multiplication and growth, 
it will be but a comparatively short time 
before it will be the property of the world. It 
is interesting to note in this connection that, 
through the generous offer of an Australian 
for the right to introduce the cactus into that 
country, INIr. Burbank has been enabled to 
build that which he had never had before, a 
comfortable house in which to live, — the Aus- 
tralian paying three thousand five hundred 
dollars for five leaves. 

It was in the period that marked the great 
change in his life from a prosperous nursery- 
man to the career of a scientific plant-breeder 
that INIr. Burbank first began a practical con- 
sideration of the possibilities of the cactus. As 
has been indicated in the chapter dealing in a 

371 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

general way with the cactus, he had been in- 
terested in the plant from a child ; something 
in its wild, stubborn, defiant life appealed to 
him. This was greatly strengthened as the 
years went by, and as he saw its tremendous 
economic possibilities. 

The problem before him, as he set out his 
first cactus plants on the morning of a fair 
June day, was one of the most difficult ever 
faced by a plant-breeder; in certain ways it 
might be called the most difficult. It is doubt- 
ful if Mr. Burbank himself, at the beginning 
of this long and signally successful experiment, 
realized the magnitude of the task before him, 
or the vast possibilities. While at that time it 
was known that there were thornless cacti, 
they were of relatively small economic value 
to the world. The insignificant bristling little 
pests, with which he began the test, gave no 
promise in themselves of the splendid crea- 
tions which are today the fulfilment of one 
of his most cherished plans. 

It was in the midst of a study of forage 
plants and the possibilities of their improve- 
ment, — various grasses, native and foreign, 
wild and tame, a line of work still under way, 

372 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

— that his attention was attracted to the cac- 
tus. If he could take the cactus, possessed of 
unquestioned excellencies as a forage plant, as 
well as being of marked edibility for man, and 
convert it, man's implacable, defiant foe, into 
man's obedient servant, the problem Avould be 
solved. 

He selected, as the cactus on which to begin 
work, the opuntia, named from a city called 
Opus, in Locris. The particular plant upon 
which he first began work was the common 
prickly pear {Opuntia imlgaris). Concerning 
the opuntia, jMr. Burbank says that he was 
early impressed with its possibilities, when 
combined with other species, because of its 
hardiness, its vigor, its rapidity of growth, and 
its ability to adapt itself to a wide variety of 
conditions. So he set about securing from all 
over the world different varieties of the opun- 
tias. IMexico, Central and South America, 
North and South Africa, Japan, Australia, 
Hawaii, and the South Sea Islands were 
drawn upon for a working stock. Hardy wild 
species were secured also from various parts of 
the United States. He drew liberally upon 
species far different from the opuntias for the 

373 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

purpose of building up his ideal strain. No 
matter how wild and defiant, no matter how 
full of deadly thorns, if he saw in them some 
characteristic likely to have a helpful influ- 
ence, they were installed upon the proving 
grounds. Quoting INIr. Burbank in this point: 
"Many so-called thornless or partially thorn- 
less opuntias were obtained, but not one 
among the thousands received from all these 
sources was absolutely free from thorns and 
spicules; and, even worse, those which were 
the most promising in these respects generally 
bore the poorest fruit, were the most unpro- 
ductive, provided less fodder, or were less 
hardy than the wild thornless species and 
varieties. The first work was to select the best 
of these, and thus continue, hoping for im- 
provement. One of the first and not unex- 
pected facts of importance to be observed was 
that, by crossing, the thorns were often in- 
creased rather than diminished, but not so 
with all. Some very few still came even more 
thornless than their so-called thornless parents, 
with greatly increased size and quality of 
leaves (known by some as raquettes, or slabs), 
and among them was a combination of the 

374 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

best qualities of both parents, with surprising 
productiveness. 

"Some of the best growers among the new 
opuntias produced three or four times as much 
weight of food per acre as did the wild thorny 
ones under exactly the same conditions. But, 
better yet, hardy ones were produced, which 
will ah'cady withstand five to ten degrees 
more freezing than others of the wild type. 
This was not unexpected, as the opuntia is 
surprisingly variable even in the wild state. 
The best botanists, — even those who have 
made the opuntia a special study, — declare it 
to be one of the most difficult genera to 
classify, as new forms are constantly appear- 
ing, and the older ones so gradually and im- 
perceptibly merge together. The facts, with- 
out doubt, are that their ancestors had leaves 
like other vegetation and were as thornless as 
an apple tree, but in ages past were stranded 
in a region which was gradually turning to a 
desert, perhaps by the slow evaporation of 
some great inland lake or sea. Being thus 
stranded, those plants survived which could 
adapt themselves to the heat and drought, each 
year, as the seasons passed, becoming more 

375 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

severe. At first they accomplished this by 
dropping all of their leaves, thus preventing too 
much evaporation, while the fat, smooth stems 
were left to perform the functions of the 
leaves. The opuntias to this day always shoot 
out numerous rudimentary leaves, which per- 
sist a few days or weeks and then, having no 
function to perform, drop off. 

" But the opuntia had yet to meet another 
enemy. Desert animals were hungry for their 
rich stores of nutriment and water, so the 
rudimentary leaves were replaced by awful, 
needle-like thorns, placed at exactly the right 
angles for defence and, at the base of these, 
partially imbedded in the stems (now leaves) 
were numerous bundles of smaller needles, 
more than ten thousand to each leaf. These 
are even more dangerous than the larger nee- 
dles, producing great pain, inflammation, and 
at last death, to animals which were pressed 
by starvation to consume them for food. 

"The opuntias having once been thornless, 
there was no reason why they should not again 
revert to a state of partial thornlessness, and 
this is precisely what they do. In the Ha- 
waiian Islands a partially thornless opuntia is 

376 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

sometimes found, always growing, however, in 
places absolutely inaccessible to browsing ani- 
mals. In California, Mexico, Colorado, New 
Mexico and Texas, small patches of half-thorn- 
less ones are sometimes found, almost always 
in inaccessible crevices among the rocks. On 
some of the South Sea Islands, where vegeta- 
tion is abundant and browsing animals few, 
the opuntias, having no use for thorns, have 
become hair -like, diminished and perfectly 
harmless." 

From year to year, as the test has advanced, 
INIr. Burbank has had occasion to draw upon 
the following cacti, which, with others, have 
formed the groundwork of this great experi- 
ment, — the list will suggest something of its 
scope, as well as its complexity: 

General varieties, — Albispina, arbuscula, ar- 
borescens, basilaris, Bernadina, Brasiliensis, 
camanchica, dearmatus, Emori, Englemanni, 
formidablis, frutescens, fulgida (cholla) fragilis, 
galopageana, gummosa, humifusa, l^evis, lepto- 
caulis, lurida, JNIissouriensis, monacantha, ma- 
crorhiza, nigricans, papyracantha, pheenacantha, 
Rafinesquii, senilis, spinosoir, triacantha, ursina, 
and others. 

377 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

Opuntia Tuna—Av[\2ivi\[o, bianco, cardena 
(U. S. 10179), chasena, Colorado, crystallina, 
grande, jarilla, morado, tapuna, xoconostle, 
vulgaris, and others. 

Opuntia Ficus Indica — Anacantha (U. S. 
9352), Arizaga (white), Arizaga (yellow), 
bianco, Bryant, catania (U. S. 3642), Colorado, 
gymnocarpa (U. S. 12402), Hayne, inermis, 
malta (U. S. 9352), maurisi (U. S. 9850), mis- 
sion, monelova, Myers, Skelley, Watson (No. 
1) Watson (No. 2) and others. 

In addition to these, plants of Nopalea, Cer- 
cus, Pilocereus, Mammillaria, Echinopsis, and 
Phyllocactus have been used in the tests with 
twelve thousand seedlings and hybrid seed- 
lings, the offspring of the hardiest, most nu- 
tritious and most rapid - growing so-called 
thornless varieties. 

Passing to more definite details, as to the 
development of the opuntia, and the part it is 
to play in the redemption of the waste places 
of the earth, it is to be noted that the cactus 
plant differs markedly from many other plants 
in the facilities which it offers for breeding. 
For example, it must be pollenated in the 
very middle of the day, in the hottest sun- 

378 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

shine of the hottest summer months. From a 
half-hour to two hours and a half the blossoms 
are then in fullest bloom. Particular care was 
found necessary in the crossing to see that no 
possible trace of vagrant pollen was upon the 
stigma of the plant to be crossed with pollen 
from another. Every step in the great work 
must be safeguarded. Thousands of pollena- 
tions w^ere to be made; all of them must be 
made by skilled men ; only a brief portion of 
each day and but a short portion of the 
year was available for the work. 

The cactus plant first opens its blossom and 
presents its stigma for pollen from insects. It 
has learned this habit through age-long pro- 
cesses. When a certain time has elapsed, how- 
ever, and no insect comes along bearing the 
fructifying pollen on leg or w ing, the stamens 
of the plants can wait no longer, and, bursting 
forth, they sift their golden secret down upon 
the receptive stigma and pollenation has be- 
gun. It is at this particular period when the 
plant is waiting for the insect that the breeder 
must be prepared for his work, — no detail 
can be overlooked, everything must be in 
readiness. 

379 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

It will thus be seen that not only is the 
time for crossing the cactus restricted to a 
very few days and a few hours of each one of 
these days, but that only a very short portion 
of such daily period may be used. So all 
possible haste in the work consistent with 
accuracy is imperative. 

First securing from the plants to be crossed 
with those in waiting a sufficient amount of 
pollen, thoroughly distributed through camel's- 
hair brushes, the stigma is examined with a 
powerful hand microscope to make absolutely 
certain that not a single pollen-grain is upon 
the stigma. One such pollen -grain at this 
juncture would defeat the whole pollenation. 
Should such a grain be discovered, it must be 
removed at once; if this cannot be done, the 
blossom must be abandoned. With the stigma 
clear, the pollen is dusted thickly upon it : the 
initial act is ended, thougli the real end of the 
test be years distant; for from the seeds of 
this poUenated plant other plants must be 
grown and still others, thousands of them it 
may be, and interblendings must be made 
between these and other thousands as the 
years pass. The very complexity of it all is 

380 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

bewildering, and always the wonder grows 
that order may at last be brought out of such 
seeming chaos. 

In these tests, Mr. Burbank discards abso- 
lutely all antiquated notions, like that, for 
example, which provides for tissue paper bags 
to encase newly pollenated flowers, proceeding 
upon exceedingly simple, sane, and effective 
lines. He lays particular stress upon this in 
his cactus breeding, noting that it is not only 
wholly unnecessary to put a flower in a pocket 
at a most critical time in its life, but that it is 
positively harmful to the flower, preventing 
its fullest and most satisfactory development. 
He says there will be no question as to results, 
practical or scientific, if the person who does 
the poUenating knows his business: this being 
granted, nature will take care of the rest. 

Following the pollenating come the culture 
and care of the plants until seed-growing is 
accomphshed; then new seeds must be 
planted, new flowers must blossom, new 
crosses must be made. 

But correlated in importance with all this 
is selection. There must be a constant scru- 
tiny of the new plants as they come along in 

381 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

successive generations. Crosses must be made 
with allied and widely separated species; 
crosses with those most intimately related; 
crosses between different varieties of each spe- 
cies, a very close and intimate in-breeding, so 
to call it, but selection must at the same time 
be rigidly practiced, or the test will utterly 
fail. Over six hundred varieties and over sev- 
enty-five species have been used in the prose- 
cution of this test covering the twelve-year 
period it has been in progress, always with 
two elemental needs before the mind: — first, 
so to blend these plants having diverse and 
similar attributes that they may be able to 
rid themselves of their old wild ways and of 
their old imperfections; second, to build up a 
race of new plants, hardy, prolific, thornless, 
nutritious, of help to the race. 

All this has constantly been before Mr. 
Burbank's mind in carrying forward this, in 
many ways, the greatest act of his life. Out of 
the wild, barbaric chaos of a plant life arrayed 
for centuries, indeed for how many milleniums 
we do not know, as a distinct foe to all animal 
life, he has brought a fine and beautiful order. 
From one plant he has taken strength, from 

382 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

another beauty of flower and form, from an- 
other abundance of fruitage, from another 
prodigious powers of growth, from another 
intense persistence, from another adaptabihty, 
from another hardiness. From them all he has 
moulded the new plant, fashioning it through 
long patient years of care and toil and physical 
discomfort, — for the work among the wild 
cacti, and particularly the poUenating, is ac- 
complished in the midst of sharp pain, the 
thorns inevitably working their way into the 
fingers and causing much distress, — often in- 
terrupted by discouragements and blocked by 
many failures, but always pressing on with 
supreme devotion and an unconquerable con- 
fidence in the final outcome. While out of 
the thousands of crosses that have been made 
many strange and fearsome plants have come, 
intensifying with pagan persistence their de^ o- 
tion to the gods of pain and misrule, yet 
steadily the nobler traits have predominated 
until the long-sought end has been reached. 
Six new opuntias have been produced as a 
result of all these twelve years of labor, thorn- 
less save in one or two instances, where the 
thorns or spicules are so insignificant as to be 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

of no danger. These six are creations ; let this 
be clearly set forth, new plants, actually made 
by JNIr. Burbank from material never com- 
bined before, the product of his brain and 
hand, plants different from any ever created 
before by man or nature, set forward for the 
enrichment of the race. 

Briefly noted, they are the "Santa Rosa," 
producing leaves more rapidly than any other 
cactus plant JNIr. Burbank has had in his 
whole collection wild or cultivated, the leaves 
often two feet long by ten inches wide, pro- 
ducing in three years from the seed a plant 
six feet high, six and one-half feet across, with 
seventy-one huge leaves ; the " Sonoma," pro- 
ducing leaves very rapidly and thicker than 
any of the others ; the " California," quite simi- 
lar to the "Sonoma"; the "Fresno," a cross- 
bred seedling wholly unlike its parents and, 
though but two years old, having leaves eigh- 
teen inches long by eight wide; the "IMonte- 
rey," the most rapid -growing of its class 
(Tapuna) with nearly circular leaves, thick and 
ten or twelve inches across in yearling plants; 
the " Chico," especially strong in fat and starch 
content. 

384 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

Only the barest outline of their individual 
characteristics may here be given. 

Along with the production of these entirely 
new opuntias has gone the development and 
improvement of old varieties. These have 
been advanced by constant selection and 
crossing far beyond the point they had reached 
unaided by man, and extensive tests are still 
in progress among them. It is of interest to 
note that one or two of these latter which 
Avere recently discovered by an agent of the 
government in a foreign land, and brought to 
this country for experimentation, had already 
been under test in INIr. Burbank's proving 
grounds for years, while another, thus discov- 
ered and brought to the United States, prac- 
tically identical with them, had been growing 
in California for over thirty years. 

In order to secure definite data as to the 
composition of the cacti under test, JNIr. Bur- 
bank submitted a number of the new opuntias 
to Professor M. E. Jaffa, of the Department 
of Chemistry in the State University of Cali- 
fornia, a very careful analyst. His analyses 
are here given, supplying important informa- 
tion on this point. 

385 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

Analyses of Four Samples of Thornless Cacti Received from 
Luther Burbank, Santa Rosa, California, February 8, 1907 





Santa Rosa 


Sonoma 


California 


Chico 




Per cent 


Per cent 


Per cent 


Per cent 


Water . . . 


. 94.70 


94.66 


94.01 


92.74 


Ash ... . 


.96 


1.23 


1.35 


1.68 


Protein . . . 


.66 


.72 


.61 


.58 


Crude fiber . 


.75 


.59 


.54 


.75 


Starch, etc. . 


. 2.88 


2.71 


3.45 


4.06 


Fat ... . 


.05 


.09 


.04 


.19 



100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 

It is of interest to note, in this connection, 
that the national government, through the Bu- 
reau of Plant Industry of the Department of 
Agriculture, has lately been engaged in cactus 
tests to determine the food value and general 
composition of various wild cacti. The results 
have been highly encouraging. In a bulletin 
issued by the government in the present year 
(January, 1907), by David Griffiths, of the 
bureau, and R. F. Hare, chemist of the New 
Mexico College of Agriculture, certain impor- 
tant results are shown. Elaborate analyses 
were made of the wild cacti, the opuntias, the 
type upon which Mr. Burbank began his work 
to develop them into the present thornless 
ones. It was shown in this cooperative exam- 
ination that there was a marked difference in 

386 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

the amount of water held by the caeti in wet 
and dry seasons, running as low as 60.99 per 
cent and as high as 95.5 per cent. On the 
point of a balanced ration for stock, with the 
wild cactus as a factor, tlie bulletin holds that, 
so far as has been determined, a ration of the 
wild cacti for a cow would require 40 pounds 
of cactus with 10 pounds of wheat bran and 
12 pounds of corn stover, giving the cow 
21.16 pounds of organic matter, containing 
1.68 pounds of protein, 11.82 pounds of carbo- 
hydrates and 0.49 pounds of fat. 

It is shown in the bulletin that at a recent 
test, conducted by the Bureau of Plant Indus- 
try at Encinal, Texas, a ration of prickly pear 
and cottonseed meal was fed to a bunch of 
steers for one hundred and five days with a 
gain of one and three-fourths pounds of flesh 
per day at a cost of only three and one-third 
cents. "Any ration of these two foods," the 
bulletin says, "that would secure this gain 
each day, would contain an excess of proteids 
over an amount necessary for a balanced 
ration. Fortunately, however, an excess of 
proteids can be utilized in serving the func- 
tion of the carbohydrates in the animal body, 

387 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

and this is, no doubt, what took place in the 
above experiment." 

Attention is called in the bulletin to the 
use of the prickly pear in Mexico where the 
thorns are singed away before feeding to cat- 
tle, though the interesting fact is developed 
that, to quote from the bulletin, "the extent 
of cattle-feeding upon this kind of food is not 
so great in JMexico as one would suppose, 
from the abundance of the material and the 
great extent of time during which the practice 
has been in vogue. The fact is, that the aver- 
age Mexican peon cannot afford to feed to 
stock what he himself can use so profitably in 
other ways. The prickly pear is to him pri- 
marily an article of huinan food, and its place 
cannot be taken by any other plant. . . . 
Over a large part of the Republic, although 
the prickly pears are much used for forage, 
their principal use is as an article of human 
food." 

While this is a new departure in this coun- 
try in the line of animal feeding, and while 
much remains to be worked out, enough has 
been established to show the large economic 
importance of the cactus as a forage food. 

388 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

Now that JNIr. Burbank has taken this wikl 
cactus and developed it as here set forth, pre- 
serving and enhancing its desirable character- 
istics and eliminating its objectionable ones, 
the whole situation is simplified : his new cacti 
enter, figures of commanding importance. In- 
stead of attempting to devise mechanical or 
other allied means for the removal of the dan- 
gerous thorns and spicules, he has removed 
them by breeding, while, at the same time, 
enormously improving the general character 
of the plant. 

This leads to a consideration of the produc- 
ing powers of the cactus as compared with 
other forage foods. During the past summer, 
1906, the new opuntias which Mr. Burbank 
has created produced in the first six months 
of their life, from single-rooted plants (this in 
a climate and soil supposed to be poorly 
adapted to the cactus), forty-seven and one- 
half pounds per plant, yielding at the distance 
planted, — in rows five feet apart and with 
plants two and one-half feet distant from each 
other, — at the rate of 180,230 pounds per 
acre. This is over ninety tons per acre. The 
second and succeeding years the opuntias are 

389 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

always expected to produce about double as 
much as during the first year. While Mr. 
Burbank does not expect more than about 
one-fourth as large a yield as this on a desert 
soil without irrigation, say, at a conservative 
figure, twenty tons per acre, he does expect 
nearly or quite twice as much, — from one 
hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty 
tons per acre, — in a very warm climate with 
perhaps one or two light irrigations per year. 
These figures give something of the enor- 
mous economic importance of this new plant 
for forage. The average yield of clover, alfalfa, 
timothy and the like, is not at the outside 
more than one-fortieth as large as the yield 
already established at Mr. Burbank's grounds 
in soil and climate, as indicated, not supposed 
to be particularly favorable to cactus-growing. 
While the leguminous plants, as alfalfa and 
clover, are richer in protein than the cactus, 
and while they will doubtless never be dis- 
placed altogether because of their value in 
helping produce a model balanced ration, yet 
the vast difference in the yield suggests how 
very great is to be the influence of this new 
plant upon the feeding of animal life. It is of 

390 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

interest to note, however, in this connection 
that, working along the hne of inducing con- 
densed nutrition, Mr. Burbank may produce, 
by breeding and selection, a cactus having all 
other desired characteristics and as rich in fat, 
starch and protein as the richest legume. This 
is but a logical and natural development ; he 
has followed similar tests in other lines to suc- 
cessful ends. 

But the first thing to be done was to 
develop from the wild cactus a thornless, 
spiculess, fast -growing cactus, suitable the 
world over for a forage plant for animals and 
producing excellent food for man. This has 
been accomplished. 

If you stand some summer day before a 
field of alfalfa, or timothy, or any other hay- 
producing grass or grain, consisting of say a 
hundred acres, you may look for a harvest in 
normal years of from a hundred and fifty to 
two hundred tons, — perhaps, with copious irri- 
gation in the case of alfalfa, as high as five 
hundred tons, though this would be a rather 
liberal figure for a good many regions without 
an unusual amount of water. If you could 
stand before a hundred acres of the new thorn- 

391 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

less opuntias, growing in such splendid fashion 
as those which are now growing (March, 1907) 
in Mr. Burbank's proving grounds at Santa 
Rosa and Sebastopol, tall, upright, immense 
plants, tropic in their luxuriance, but firm, 
strong, vigorous and healthy, you would see a 
field producing not two hundred tons per sea- 
son, nor even five hundred, but nine thousand 
tons per season, — under specially favorable 
conditions of climate, soil, and irrigation, fifteen 
thousand tons. Does this not suggest some- 
thing of the enormous scope and influence of 
this mighty new force in plant life? 

As in the case of the fast-growing walnut 
trees, described in another chapter, there may 
be people who will consider such a statement 
overdrawn or chimerical, but the same answer 
will apply in the one case as the other. The 
trees with precisely the same wonderful char- 
acteristics are now growing, living evidence, 
while the cactus plants are growing in splen- 
did strength just as here described, and with 
just this magnificent promise of help for the 
race. The fact is that just as Mr. Burbank, in 
the development of the scientific side of his 
work, has accomplished things scientists have 

392 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

over and over again pronounced impossible, 
just as be bas set aside some pet tbcories, be- 
cause in bis bfe-work be bas bad sucb oppor- 
tunities to test and prove and observe as no 
otber man bving or dead bas ever bad, ena- 
bbng bim on tbis unprecedented scale to detect 
tbe errors tbat bave arisen from tests made in 
a petty way, so in tbe practical side of bis 
work, like tbat in tbe fast-growing trees and 
tbe new cactus, be bas demonstrated to be 
fact tbat wbicb practical men, sincere to tbe 
core but baving inadequate knowledge, bave 
believed to be impossible. 

It is extremely interesting to note in pass- 
ing tbat Mr. Burbank bas received numerous 
letters from various desert-like places in tbe 
world, and from regions wbere Famine stalks, 
asking, — indeed, it migbt sometimes well be 
termed pleading — for information as to tbe 
new cactus, tbe bope of tbe desert world. Re- 
cently a communication was received from tbe 
representatives of tbe Britisb government in 
India, making enquiry bow tbis new cactus 
may be introduced into tbe famine-stricken 
regions of tbat land. Once establisbed on a 
large scale, tbe new cactus may remain for 

393 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

years uncultivated and undisturbed, constantly 
growing on and adding to its vast store, so 
that, should famine come, it is ready with 
food for man and beast, each acre thus being 
able to preserve the lives of hundreds of hu- 
man beings for months if needful. 

Reference has been made to the use of the 
wild cacti as a food for animals after singeing 
the thorns with fire. On this point Mr. Bur- 
bank says: 

"Those who have fed the wild cactus exten- 
sively acknowledge that cattle are often seen 
with blood dripping from their mouths, and 
that their throats and tongues become in- 
flamed, very painful and at last like a piece of 
sole leather. How would you enjoy being fed 
on needles, fish-hooks, toothpicks, barbed-wire 
fence, nettles and chestnut-burs? The wild 
thorny cactus always has been and always 
must be more or less of a pest. The best 
newer thornless ones will withstand frost, 
flood, drought, heat, wind and poor soil as well 
as the wild ones, and will produce ten tons of 
fairly good food, where the average wild one 
will produce one ton of poor food." 

The fruit of the new cactus has steadily 

394 




S — 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

improved also under treatment. It will bear 
its full share in the regenerative work in prog- 
ress, not supplanting the earth's fruits, but 
supplementing them. As in the case of other 
tests of fruits, JNlr. Burbank has followed the 
methods set down in the chapter dealing with 
his plan books. I saw in his office among the 
records of his work on the cactus a bundle of 
leaves bound together, each one bearing in 
its upper left-hand corner the imprint of a 
cactus fruit. Each fruit under test is halved 
and pressed down upon the page so that its 
actual dimensions and general shape may be 
outlined. The seed cavity is also defined. 
The color of the fruit, pink, crimson, orange, 
pale yellow, or what not, was clearly to be 
seen where the meat had touched the paper. 
The fruit promises much in a commercial way 
also, since it has from 12 to 16 per cent of 
sugar in its composition, and in the case of 
the new opuntias is a heavy bearer. It proin- 
ises to take its place in the ranks of the apple, 
peach, plum, and all those fruits which have 
fought their way up to their present satisfac- 
tory stage, though absolutely distinct from 
them in character, form and taste. 

395 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

Before giving details from Mr. Burbank, as 
to the best method of planting and caring for 
the cactus, one important point must be in- 
dicated. While the new cactus is not so rich 
in starch as some other plants, its enormous 
yield per acre provides a large amount of 
material which is fermentable and which thus 
promises to become available for the produc- 
tion of ethyl alcohol, denatured alcohol, which 
is now to come into such general use and for 
such a variety of purposes through the action 
of the government in allowing its manufac- 
ture without tax. Experiments have been 
carried on at the New Mexico College of 
Agriculture to determine the amount of fer- 
mentable material in the wild cactus. It is 
sliown by way of comparison in the reports 
recently issued as a result of the experiments, 
that the average yield of corn throughout the 
United States is about 1,G13 pounds per acre, 
containing 1,129 pounds of fermentable ma- 
terial convertible into 80.64 gallons of alcohol, 
worth, at the current price of the denatured 
alcohol, 40 cents a gallon, or $33.25 for the 
acre. The experiments at the New Mexico 
College were conducted under unsatisfactory 

396 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

conditions owing to various causes, chief among 
them being the lack of data as to the cactus 
from which to work. 

However, taking 10 per cent as the amount 
of carbohydrates in the cacti analyzed, al- 
though it was not known how much of this 
would be fermentable to form alcohol, it was 
shown that on an estimated yield of 73,000 
pounds of wild cacti per acre per year, 360 
pounds of carbohybrates would be produced 
equivalent to 521 gallons of alcohol, Avorth, at 
the price quoted, $208.40. The bulletin issued 
by the college sets forth that this yield, 36j 
tons per acre, of the wild cactus is probably 
too high. 

JMr. Burbank, as noted, has created a cactus 
out of this wild cactus with a demonstrated 
yield under indifferent conditions of ninety 
tons per acre. This, too, for the first year, the 
very lowest output. Under the most favor- 
able conditions, a yield of fully one hundred 
and seventy-five tons per acre seems assured, 
this with soil and climate exactly adapted to 
the production of the cactus at its highest. 
This, on the basis of the experiments at the 
New INIexico College, would mean for the 

397 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

highest yield a return of at least one thousand 
dollars per acre in material for the manufac- 
ture of denatured alcohol. Taking the demon- 
strated yield of the new cactus per acre under 
indifferent conditions, and upon this basis the 
revenue would be two and one-half times as 
great as that from the wild cactus as indicated 
by the college figures, or $520 per acre in 
denatured alcohol as against $32.25 for Indian 
corn. 

In considering these figures, as to the new 
opuntias, it must be borne in mind that, as in 
the case of the data regarding the fast-grow- 
ing trees, all former standards of measurement 
must be abandoned, so tremendously have 
these new forms of plant -life eclipsed all 
others of a corresponding type. These new 
and powerful factors in the plant life of the 
world are unique. They afford data for the 
readjustment of many of the world's great 
forces. The way is opened in the one case to 
the rapid re-foresting of the earth's denuded 
areas, while in the other case, in addition to 
providing limitless stores of food for all cli- 
mates and all regions, desert or arable, it also 
promises to provide a remarkably cheap and 

398 



THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

inexhaustible fuel, as well as limitless supplies 
of material for all the many needs to which 
crude alcohol may be applied. 

The more the great work of Mr. Burbank is 
studied, the more clearly does it appear how 
grandly it transcends all other work in the 
domain of plant-life. Great as has been his 
influence, it has but begun its service to the 
race ; its sweep is limitless. 

" Plant wherever you wish to have them 
grow," is JNIr. Burbank's advice as to the new 
cacti, " on rich level land, or the steepest, poor- 
est, rocky hillsides, in old river beds or rock 
piles. But their growth and succulence are 
naturally increased by good soil, some culture, 
and, in very dry soils, by one or two light 
irrigations each summer. By such treatment, 
the fruit is greatly increased in size and qual- 
ity, and the slabs for feeding are doubled in 
weight and succulence. Nothing responds 
more promptly to fairly good treatment. 
They will flourish almost anywhere except 
where it is too wet for anything too grow. 

" Unlike most plants, the opuntias root best 
during the heat of summer, and this is also 
the best time to transplant them. They should 

399 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

not be moved at other seasons. No one who 
is familiar with them would undertake to root 
or transplant them during cold, damp weather 
such as would be best for other plants and 
trees. During June, July, August and Sep- 
tember they will thrive under any treatment ; 
the leaves, blossoms, buds, half-grown fruits 
or any part of the plant will take root and 
grow, even on the back of a cook-stove, in the 
pocket of your winter overcoat or on your 
writing-desk. The opuntias differ astonish- 
ingly in hardiness. Some strains of the com- 
mon prickly pear {Opuntia vulgaris) will grow 
readily in Alaska, and several of the thorny 
species will endure forty degrees below zero 
without injury. The best agricultural and 
horticultural varieties are not quite so hardy 
as the fig, yet are still more so than the orange, 
lemon, lime or common blue gum {Eucalyptus 
globulus).'' 

Mr. Burbank enumerates the various uses 
of the new opuntias as follows : 

"The plants may be used for hedges or 
fences as Avell as for ornament. The leaves are 
a food for all kinds of stock, including poultry. 
The fat young leaves (joints) make most ex- 

400 




'■>•-.-' 



-t 



-I 















THE NEW OPUNTIAS 

cellent pickles and are a good wholesome food 
when fried like eggplant. They are also boiled 
and used as greens, and when prepared with 
sugar produce a sweetmeat similar to pre- 
served citron, and may be flavored with gin- 
ger or other spices. The abundant mucilagi- 
nous juice from the leaves is extracted for 
mixing with whitewash to make it more last- 
ing when exposed to the weather. The fresh 
fruit of the improved varieties is unique in 
form and color, bringing a price about the 
same on the market as oranges. It can be 
produced at perhaps one-half the expense of 
oranges, apricots, grapes, plums or peaches, 
there being no failure in the crops, and the 
fruit can be shipped as safely as the other 
deciduous fruits. The juice from the fruits of 
tlie crimson varieties is used for coloring ices, 
jellies and confectionery." 

The following directions are given by Mr. 
Burbank for planting: 

"The opuntias differ from nearly all other 
plants, as the cuttings must first be wilted 
before they will grow, after which nothing 
grows so readily. When received, put them 
in some warm, sunny place and allow them to 

401 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

remain a week or more, after which they will 
readily form roots and start to grow anywhere, 
even on a board, a pile of rocks or the roof of 
your house if you choose. When wilted, the 
usual way is to plant so that about one-third 
of the cutting is below the soil. They may be 
planted in an upright position or at any angle 
from the perpendicular ; it makes no difference 
to the opuntias. On fairly good soil in general 
field culture for stock feed, the giant-growing 
kinds should be planted about three feet apart 
in the rows and the rows should be about 
eight feet apart. In orchard planting for the 
large-growing, fruiting varieties, probably four 
by ten or twelve feet would be better." 

So the new cactus goes to the world after 
many years of exacting study, exhaustive ex- 
perimenting and searching tests. From the 
commercial standpoint, from the standpoint of 
those who live and die where Famine stalks, 
as well as from the point of view of those who, 
from economic reasons, would see the vast 
waste places of the earth made fertile, this is 
certainly the most commanding act in the 
life of the world's greatest constructi^ e plant- 
breeder, an act of splendid usefulness. 

402 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THE NEW WORK 

TN considering the new work now in prog- 
■*- ress, may this word be said in Mr. Bur- 
bank's behalf: He has made a decision not to 
answer any correspondence relating to the 
details of new work under way. The volume 
of his correspondence is so large, the demands 
upon his time and strength are so great, he is 
obliged to make this imperativ e. He has been 
compelled, also, especially since the adminis- 
tration of the Carnegie grant began, to restrict 
more and more the number of visitors at his 
home in Santa Rosa, not from selfishness, — 
quite the contrary indeed, for he much appre- 
ciates the widespread interest in his work and 
would be glad to admit everybody; but, in 
order that the v»^ork under way, which is larger 
in scope than any which has preceded it, may 
not be retarded by interruptions, few, if any, 
visitors are now admitted to his grounds with- 
out first arranging by letter for permission, 

403 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

while still fewer people may meet him 
personally. 

In presenting this view of the new work 
under way by JMr. Burbank, one is impressed 
not only by its great significance but by the 
variety of the tests in progress. It had been 
]\Ir. Burbank's hope that, under the Carnegie 
subvention, he might confine himself to fewer 
tests, and, to a certain extent, this has been 
effected, but, at the same time, while some 
smaller tests have been temporarily set aside, 
the scope of the new work has been greatly 
enlarged. On his proving grounds at Sebas- 
topol and Santa Rosa there are upwards of 
three thousand distinct tests under way, em- 
bracing more than a million plants coming 
forward under the direction of the man who 
has already brought so many commanding 
tests to a successful end. 

In revisiting the proving grounds at Sebas- 
topol, where the larger work is chiefly in prog- 
ress, one is at once impressed by the widening 
of the scope of the great enterprise. JNIore 
acres have been added, more men set at work, 
better opportunites are offered for advancing 
the tests to successful culmination. Even, if 

404 



THE NEW WORK 

I may be pardoned the diversion, even the 
great earthquake of April 18, 1906, gave its 
aid, for not only was not a single plant out of 
the hundreds of thousands injured, but this 
curious thing happened: In plowing between 
the long rows of plants and young trees ex- 
tending down the field sometimes half a dozen 
city blocks in distance, great care must be 
exercised by the workmen to throw the earth 
to the center away from the roots ; after which 
it must be broken up and le^'eled again. The 
entire area had thus been plowed and was 
ready for the workmen when, in less than a 
minute's time, the mighty unseen power picked 
up the world and shook it as a man would 
shake a sieve between his knees and the clods 
of earth were broken up and leveled over the 
entire plowed area and settled into place even 
more skilfully than the w^orkmen could have 
accomplished it. Nor was a single pane of 
glass cracked in his conservatory, nor did one 
of his chimneys fall, though all but some 
dozen or so in the little city were destroyed. 
Stranger still, a collection of some five hun- 
dred negati\^es illustrative of his work, which 
had been accumulating during the years and 

405 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

which were stored at a local photographer's, 
escaped without a scratch, only two unimport- 
ant ones being broken, while the entire stock 
of the photographer was destroyed in the col- 
lapse of the building, leaving only a mass of 
broken glass. Mr. Burbank's negatives were 
found lying in the debris unharmed. 

Taking a general view of the work under 
way, it embraces several hundreds of thousands 
of new hybrid plums out of which some strik- 
ing results are promised ; some eight thousand 
new hybrid chestnuts made by crossing Ital- 
ian, Japanese, Chinese and American varieties ; 
the same number of new hybrid walnuts, 
blendings of the American black walnut, the 
Sieboldi, the English walnut, combined with 
the Manchurian butternut; fully as many 
thousands of new seedlings of the pineapple 
quince; thousands of new peach and peach- 
nectarine crosses; at least ten thousand new 
hybrid seedling potatoes, some of them very 
rare, with thousands of plumcots, apricots, 
cherries, grapes, berries of various kinds and 
the like, and extensive tests in the line of new 
and improved grasses, with several thousand 
cactus plants undergoing tests. 

406 




Tlie Gold plum, first Japanese-American hybrid plum : 
a rare fruit 



THE NEW WORK 

This will give a general idea of the vast 
scope of the work now under way. These 
thousands of plants are being cared for with 
the same close watchfulness that has marked 
ISIr. Burbank's breeding tests from the start, 
and where the details of the work have in- 
creased beyond the reach of any one man's 
powers, he has men trained in his own great 
school of experience, who are competent, 
under his close supervision, to carry on the 
part of the work delegated to them. 

Passing more into detail, it may be noted 
that the approach to a test may be from a 
variety of avenues. Sometimes it comes along 
the way of a suggestion, though Mr. Burbank 
has clearly defined lines of his own, marked 
out always years in advance; sometimes it 
may come through the offering of some new 
plant by one of his collectors, a plant which 
the collector has found growing in some dis- 
tant part of the world and which he thinks 
might be improved ; sometimes it is a volun- 
teer suggestion from some person ISIr. Bur- 
bank has never heard of. While some most 
preposterous and laughable things are included 
in this latter class, now and again one comes 

407 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

which has distinct value. Such was the case 
when an unknown friend sent him a few seeds 
from a blackberry, which had no thorns and 
was said to grow luxuriantly, but which was 
good for nothing as a fruit. To the average 
man, to the average plant -breeder or nursery- 
man, indeed, such a gift, however well meant, 
would scarcely seem worth more than a note 
of acknowledgment for the thoughtfulness in 
sending it. 

But Mr. Burbank's vision is not bounded 
by the limits of the apparantly impossible. 
Before he abandons any test he first deter- 
mines for himself, without any reference to 
preconceived notions, or so-called laws, or 
beautiful theories, whether or not the test may 
be followed up to a successful issue. So, see- 
ing the possibiUties in this instance for making 
over the fruit, he welcomed the worthless 
berry seeds and set about testing whether they 
might not be the forerunners of a race worthy 
of instalment among the proved fruits of the 
world. There were but a few seeds in the 
letter which came, not more than four or five 
hundred all told, but they promised to be the 
progenitors of a powerful family. When the 

408 



THE NEW WORK 

few seeds came up out of the groiiiid three or 
four httle plants were selected as being worthy 
of further test, and their seeds were again 
planted. This larger outcome was satisfactory 
from the standpoint of thornlessness, for the 
new generation persisted in this desirable 
quality. But the fruit was no better, small, 
sour, big-seeded, absolutely worthless. 

The following year a much larger number 
of plants were afforded for selection and the 
present season, 1907, twenty -five thousand 
absolutely thornless blackberries are growing 
on the grounds at Sebastopol in the midst of 
one of the most interesting tests JMr. Burbank 
has ever carried forward. While, as the test 
progresses, undeniable excellencies appear in 
certain of the berries of the new plants, as 
compared with the berries when the test be- 
gan, some larger, or having smaller and fewer 
seeds, or slightly better in taste or color, and 
while a perfected berry could no doubt be 
effected by constantly making selection of 
these slightly improved berries and so building 
them up year by year, yet whenever, as in this 
instance, there is a shorter route, safe and well 
guarded, Mr. Burbank always takes it. So in 

409 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

this case he has begun this shortening by the 
introduction of a better berry-producing strain 
of blood. Selecting the very best of the thorn- 
less berries, these are crossed with choice va- 
rieties of blackberries now known, in order to 
give to the berry-to-be, size, flavor, richness, 
color, general excellence. It is not unlikely 
that the newly created berry may be even bet- 
ter than any of its best ancestors, in addition 
to its thornlessness, for it brings to the test 
great hardiness and virility. The best offspring 
of the crosses with the berries of better fruit 
are in turn selected and so on as the test ad- 
vances, always making selection of the very 
best and making no combination or blending 
which does not promise some pronounced ex- 
cellence for the new fruit. 

So, within a few years the test will be per- 
fected, just as hundreds of others have been 
perfected, and there will come into common 
use a series of fine new thornless blackberries, 
making their compelling appeal to all of us 
who would prefer to have our berries without 
their exasperating thorns. 

Brief reference vv^as made in a preceding 
chapter to the work which was under way at 

410 




The !ars>-e ]>luin to tlie rinlit is tlic result of ;i cross hetut-en 
tlie wild Aiiieriean heaeli ])him, Mt the left, and a Japanese plum. 
Tile new plum is nuieh lariier than here shown and twiee as large 
as the Japanese parent. 



THE NEW WORK 

the time the chapter was written, on the new 
fruit which has been called the pomato, wliicli 
develops from the seed-ball upon the potato 
into a fruit of the general size and shape of a 
small tomato. The work in progress since the 
pomato was established as a definite, though 
unperfected fruit, has been interrupted by 
many other more pressing duties. As the test 
advanced, it was found that to make the fruit 
perfect and appropriate for general introduc- 
tion, certain tendencies must be overcome. 
When grown from tubers, it produced less and 
less fruit each season. When raised from seed, 
there was almost a constant reversion to the 
common bitter potato ball as of old. It will 
be necessary to fix it by numerous selections 
in its best estate which has been already 
secured, but the time required and the great 
number of seedlings necessary thoroughly to 
fix the tendency to bear delicious fruit, make 
the work too great at present for IVIr. Burbank 
to undertake with all the other work in hand. 
The time will come when either he or some- 
one else will make a stable, abundant fruit out 
of the pomato, already proven to be a most 
delicious fruit. 

411 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT IJFE 

While this test has been checked merely for 
the reasons noted, it may be well here to say, 
in answer to those wild and silly claims that, 
from time to time, have been made by irre- 
sponsible persons as to miracles performed 
upon these great proving grounds, that IMr. 
Burbank has never sent out to the world any 
creation whicli was not, in so ftir as it was pos- 
sible to make it, perfect, complete in all its 
appointments, standing for just what it was 
by him represented to be, nothing more nor 
less. Should he at any time in the midst of a 
great test, covering, it might be, a long term 
of years, discover that the test was not going 
to come out as he had hoped, he would be the 
first to abandon it. He has been scrupulously 
careful never to present to the world any pro- 
duction in anything but its right light. I recall 
passing by a florist's stand in the city of San 
Francisco one day, and noticing prominently 
displayed " Burbank's new green carnation," 
the product of a very ordinary white carna- 
tion and a bottle of ink. Many such spurious 
things have been exploited under liis name, 
and it will be worth while, when reading some 
bizarre statement of his production of some 

412 



THE NEW WORK 

floral impossibility, to bear in mind that noth- 
ing leaves his hand which is other than he 
represents it to be. 

In a previous chapter mention was made of 
the transformation of the wild American beach 
plum, a small, bitter, comparatively worthless 
fruit, into a fine ncv/ plum, having desirable 
attributes and maintaining the prolific bearing 
qualities of its hardy little ancestor. As work 
has progressed upon this plum, it has wonder- 
fully developed along the line of size. I\Ir. 
Burbank has crossed it with a Japanese plum, 
and, while the statement seems little short of 
miraculous, the ftict remains that the new 
plum is fully five hundred times as large as 
the beach phnii from a seed of which he began 
the work several years ago. It is one of the 
most wonderful instances of development ever 
known in plant-breeding. 

INIention was also made of a pitless or stone- 
less plum which IMr. Burbank has produced 
from a tiny French plum about the size of a 
cranberry, and having only a portion of a pit. 
It was shown that it only remained a matter 
of time to breed the stones out of all plums 
and prunes. In line with this comes the new 

413 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

and important information that Mr. Burbank 
now has growing in his tests fully five thou- 
sand varieties of stoneless plums all waiting for 
the final selection of the best, some of them 
already showing superb quality. This is one 
of the most important features of the new 
work in progress. The first announcement of 
the production of a stoneless plum was strik- 
ingly interesting from the standpoint of nov- 
elty, something, to many, hard by the land of 
miracles, but now the commercial importance 
of the new plums looms high; for, with the 
general use of plums and prunes having no 
stones, this whole department of the world's 
fruit industry will be changed. These five 
thousand pitless seedling plums mark a revo- 
lution, or, better put, an evolution of immense 
significance. 

It must be borne in mind that in producing 
a new plum, bringing it up to a final perfected 
condition, years of time are required, and par- 
ticularly so when so important a change as this 
is to be made. Melons, corn, beans and the 
like, can be brought to test in six months' 
time, not so with a tree. 

In the line of new fruits, IMr. Burbank has 

414 



THE NEW WORK 

been at work upon a most interesting problem, 
now solved, the production of a fruit from a 
cross of two solanums, the widely differen- 
tiated plant which runs through some seven 
or eight hundred species, chief among which 
are the potato, the eggplant, and the deadly 
nightshade. The two plants on which Mr. 
Burbank has been working bore what might 
be called fruit, though neither one was of any 
value. One bore green berries about the size 
of buckshot and of no use whatever as a 
food for man, though animals are very fond of 
them, especially rabbits and poultry. The 
other bore somewhat larger fruit, black in 
color, growing in smaller clusters. This latter 
had an intensely bad odor and flavor and was 
of no value as a food. 

These two worthless plants were crossed, 
and out of them has come an entirely new 
fruit, different from any which has been 
known in the world before, and promising to 
become a novel and valuable addition to the 
world's store. Work is still in progress, as the 
plants vary somewhat in flavor and produc- 
tiveness and uniformity must be secured. But 
so great is their general productiveness that 

415 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

none of them has failed to bear more fruit than 
ahnost any other known fruiting plant. The 
marvelous bearing qualities of the new fruit 
will be among its chief commercial recommen- 
dations, but coupled with this is delightful 
flavor and attractiveness of appearance. The 
new fruit varies from the size of a large blue- 
berry to that of a large huckleberry, and is, 
curiously enough, the exact counterpart in 
every possible particular of the common low- 
bush blueberry, the Kaccinium Pemisylvcini- 
cum. Mr. Burbank says that no person could 
possibly detect the difference between the two 
eaten in a pie or, as so many prefer, in a bowl 
of milk, and yet the two plants are wholly sep- 
arate from each other. When cooked for use 
as a sauce or for other forms of dessert, the 
new fruit does not differ in appearance or taste 
from the blueberry. The seeds are no larger 
than the blueberry seeds. 

But the best quality of all is their enormous 
productiveness. The plant will continue bear- 
ing successive crops all summer, and until 
winter, appearing in fine large clusters. In 
such climates as that of California, the bearing 
continues through most of the winter. The 

416 




pa 









/-•V 



':<^r-^:^., '^ 



THE NEW WORK 

plants are raised in the same way as tomatoes. 
JNIr. Burbank points out the fact that a man 
can now raise blueberries (or what is their 
equivalent) in his back yard as cheaply and 
easily as he can raise tomatoes. In acre lots 
the new berry promises to have important 
commercial features, making it, indeed, a large 
factor to be reckoned with in the future of 
fruit-growing in America and in all the rest of 
the world as well. Mr. Burbank says it must 
not be confounded with a so-called "garden 
huckleberry," Solanum nigriun, or black night- 
shade, having a most disagreeable taste and an 
offensive odor. Any one, he says, who can eat 
a second berry has unusual courage. 

Allied with the production of this new fruit 
is the work upon the bitter elderberry, which 
has for so many years been valuable chiefly as 
a remedy for certain diseases and sometimes 
used in the making of pies, in the manufac- 
ture of wine and for use in the adulteration of 
port wine. IMr. Burbank some time ago began 
work upon a bright yellow variety from which 
he produced some thousands of seedlings. 
Out of the thousands one was discovered 
which had a quality that he much desired — it 

417 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

was free from the bitter taste of its ancestor. 
Slowly he led it upward by successive selec- 
tions of the very best of its progeny, always 
with the one end in view to intensify its good 
attributes and exclude its disagreeable ones. 
The result is that he has produced a fruit with 
not a trace for all time of the bitterness of the 
old berry, as white as the Niagara or any other 
grape that can be named, and as delicious as 
the grape, when cooked or when dried as a 
raisin. 

But even this does not satisfy him, and he is 
now at work upon thousands on thousands of 
seedlings to make still further improvements. 
It has been for forty years INIr. Burbank's 
ambition to take this plant of so little value 
commercially and so inferior, or even worth- 
less, as a fruit, and transform it into a fruit 
which should enrich the world. Enough has 
now been proven to show that he has the end 
in sight. He has verified his position step by 
step, leaving nothing to conjecture and refus- 
ing to allow it to leave his hands, even in its 
present advanced stage, preferring to wait 
until still further improvements are effected. 

Among the curiously interesting tests now 

418 




^P<^E 






H^jl 


1 , ^ :'.yt.^- 




■ 




'i^^^^^^H 



THE NEW WORK 

well under way and promising rare results is 
the work upon a new edible passion-flower 
fruit. When at Sebastopol I found one work- 
man upon his knees in the midst of a long 
row of low vines, industriously cutting away 
the long runners or branches and pruning the 
plants into shape for another season's work. 
I noticed that the plants growing so thickly 
upon the ground bore numerous green balls, 
usually somewhat elongated and about the size 
of a hen's egg, some of them larger. The 
plants were still green, though many dead 
leaves were being raked out. They grew close 
to the ground, quite as a melon grows only 
with shorter stems and much more numerous 
in leaves. 

It was very difficult to realize that this low- 
growing, industrious-looking plant, which was 
being so severely pruned, was the passion- 
flower plant known by this name since the 
day when the first Spanish settlers in America 
discovered it, and saw in its curiously interest- 
ing flowers a representation of our Lord's pas- 
sion, — the slender filaments of the corona the 
crown of thorns, the styles the nails of the 
cross, and the five anthers the marks of the 

419 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

wounds. The five sepals and five petals were 
also taken to have a special significance, rep- 
resenting the ten apostles, with Peter, who 
denied his Master, and Judas, who betrayed 
Him, left out. The flower was given some 
very curious pictorial interpretations by the 
botanists of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries. In some parts of the world certain 
varieties have been grown for their fruits, 
which are unlike in the different varieties in 
shape and size, running from the size of a hen's 
ess to that of a ffourd, the latter sometimes 
weighing from seven to eight pounds. But it 
has oftener been as a flower, not as a fruit, 
that the plant has been noted; indeed, it is 
quite likely its former use has been unknown 
to many who have long admired it for the 
peculiar beauty of its flower. Now that 
through the improved variety a valuable fruit 
is to come into commercial prominence, the 
passion-flower takes on a new interest. It has 
been cultivated for years in many quarters of 
the globe for its peculiar beauty and for this 
strange religious association. Ordinarily one 
sees it rambling over a porch or growing on a 
trellis or clambering up a huge tree-trunk, its 

420 



THE NEW WORK 

brilliant curious flowers of the numerous spe- 
cies always objects of admiration. To see it 
prone upon the earth not more than six or 
eight inches higli, growing in long rows, with 
the pruning shears severely cutting it down, is 
to receive an altogether different impression 
of this really wonderful plant. 

INIr. Burbank now has a great number of 
hybrid passion-flowers raised from thousands 
of seedlings of selected varieties, and the early 
promise of adding a list of improved varieties 
of most delicious fruit, should just the proper 
combination and blending be effected, is now 
being fulfilled. It will be some little time 
before his new edible passion-flowers will be 
on the market, but enough has been already 
accomplished to assure success. It is of inter- 
est to note that some new varieties of the pas- 
sion-flower never before known, and not even 
classified by botanists, are among the ones on 
which he is working in building up the new 
fruit. 

Not ready for announcement are several 
absolutely new fruits upon which he has been 
at work for years, promising some singularly 
interesting and important results. An entirely 

421 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

new poppy, rarer, in some ways, than any he 
has yet produced, is under way, receiving now 
its finishing touches before it goes out in 
radiant beauty to adorn the world. Mr. Bur- 
bank says that this new poppy promises to 
surpass in size, color, gracefulness and general 
beauty any poppy now known in the world. 
The experiments in new forms of grasses 
which have been much interrupted in their 
progress have now been resumed. Along this 
line the economic results promise to be large. 
Attention is now being given to one important 
department in which Mr. Burbank has been 
at work, but never to the same extent as in 
other lines, the production of more beautiful 
and striking flowering shrubs and ornamental 
trees for lawns and public parks. Some tests, 
promising most effective results never before 
reached in this line, are under way. 

In this latter connection I may make men- 
tion of one of the rare acts in his life, — so far 
as I know it has not been publicly announced, 
— the complete changing of the leaf of a wild 
flower from a plain, unbroken edge to a most 
beautiful fringed effect, transforming a homely 
wild plant, growing neglected on the California 

422 



THE NEW WORK 

hillside, into a beautiful decorative plant, very 
effective when potted for indoors in wintry 
climes and for outdoor use along garden 
walks or in masses. The transformation was 
effected by insistent and long-continued selec- 
tion, forever choosing from the new genera- 
tions of plants as they came along those whose 
leaves approached, even if slightly, the effect 
desired. In this way the completed plant has 
been secured. The accompanying illustra- 
tion shows how marked has been the change 
wrought. 

While the new work in progress is being 
greatly aided in its practical aspects by the 
Carnegie grant, the scientific side of the new 
work is not being neglected. The Carnegie 
Institution authorities are taking a deep inter- 
est in the work, and a man has been detailed 
to make an accurate and extensive review of 
all the work Mr. Burbank has done in the 
past, as well as to record data as to the work 
in progress. In the midst of great toil, and 
often working under severe mental strain, it 
has been impossible for JMr. Burbank to make 
as extensive detailed records of much of his 
work as he would have liked to do. Now, 

423 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

however, this is being effected and a rich 
store of technical and general information is 
assured. One feature of particular interest is 
the preparation of what may be called a life 
history of plant-life. Once a day IMr. Burbank 
meets the representative of the Institution 
with a stenographer. Beginning with the first 
letter of the alphabet the whole field of plant- 
life is being considered. Taking up each plant, 
questions are asked, if necessary, though often 
Mr. Burbank dictates without questions, thus 
recording information regarding all phases of 
the plant's life as he has observed them 
through the years. Coupled with this in the 
case of those plants upon which he has actu- 
ally worked, is a detailed statement of the 
process of his development of the plant. The 
plan is large in scope. It will be of special 
interest to all advanced plant-breeders as well 
as to botanists, physiologists and biologists. It 
promises to give to the world a mass of novel 
and immensely valuable information, for the 
source upon which the Institution is drawing 
stands unique in the world. 

From time to time the Institution will pub- 
lish the results of this most interesting and 

424 



THE NEW WORK 

important work. Though it will not be pri- 
marily prepared for the general reader, it must 
yet appeal to him, while its value as a prac- 
tieal and seientific record of plant-life cannot 
be estimated. 

In a certain definite sense, Mr. Burbank's 
work is never done. He completes as far as 
possible, we will say, a plum. It has reached 
the very highest point to which, at the pres- 
ent, at least, for lack of time he has been able 
to advance it, — in form, color, size, taste, rich- 
ness, shipping qualities and so on. And yet 
the very next year this plum may be super- 
seded, or, at least, excelled, in some one par- 
ticular point, by another plum which has been 
working its way up steadily through the years 
under the same guiding hand. So, year by 
year, new tests in plums are culminating, and 
so large has been the preparatory stage that 
greater results are now promised than at any 
other time in the history of the work. Each 
year, too, tens of thousands are being discarded 
because not superior to those now existing. It 
is Mr. Burbank's aim constantly to seek a 
higher plane. To him it matters not that a 
plant develops what might be termed spectac- 

425 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

ular qualities, something brilliantly different ; 
it must have abiding qualities, excellencies that 
lift it above all others, permanence. Nor does 
it matter to him how fine the ones that may 
have preceded it have been ; the new one that 
is better must supplant them and inevitably 
will do so. 

Just a word here as to some of the past pro- 
ductions of Mr. Burbank. It is so easy to for- 
get. It is also convenient, sometimes. It some- 
times becomes easy for a party possessing one 
of Mr. Burbank's productions to forget who 
made it, possibly it may be purposely given a 
name identifying it in some way with some- 
body who had no more to do with it than the 
prophet Jeremiah. In this way, in past days, 
many of the creations which he has brought 
out have never in any way been placed to his 
credit. Only the other day I chanced upon a 
current magazine article giving somewhat in 
detail the wonderful productiveness and gen- 
eral excellence of two of Mr. Burbank's berries. 
One of them was the Phenomenal berry de- 
scribed in another chapter, an absolutely new 
creation, one of the great triumphs of scientific 
plant-breeding, the other the really wonderful 

426 



THE NEW WORK 

Himalaya blackberry, improved and intro- 
duced by IMr. Burbank, now an acknowledged 
standard of excellence. No mention whatever 
was made of Mr. Burbank in the paper. Such 
instances as this are the more unfortunate, 
as they are exploitations, not advertisements, 
describing in detail for popular reading what 
new factors in American fruit-life are accom- 
plishing. Logically, in such a case, the man 
who made them possible should come first in 
their consideration. 

Years ago, IVIr. Burbank discovered and 
introduced a splendid plum which afterward 
took his name. At the first, nobody cared for 
it. Nobody cared for it even enough to use it 
free of cost. It aroused no interest. One day 
a rancher, living near Sebastopol, a man badly 
in debt and seeking some way of escape, de- 
termined that he would give the new plum a 
hearing. He had seen it growing on Mr. Bur- 
bank's grounds and was impressed by its gen- 
eral excellence. All the land at his disposal, 
several acres, was given up to the Burbank 
plum. As soon as he had sufficient to sell, he 
found that the people who bought fruit knew 
a good thing when they saw it. The demand 

427 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

rapidly increased. He sold at high prices. He 
devoted more space to the plum. It yielded 
him a handsome income, paid off a seven- 
thousand - dollar mortgage, made him inde- 
pendent. The late Cecil Rhodes heard of it. 
He introduced it into South Africa, giving 
it its chance to show what it could do on a 
hundred acres. It gallantly accepted the test, 
and from the hundred acres came a crop 
worth one hundred thousand dollars each year 
for several years. 

But not a cent, directly or indirectly, has 
ever come to Mr. Burbank for this great plum, 
and he found it difficult in those first days to 
give it away. I fancy it would not be so 
today. 

The new work as it progresses is steadily 
emphasizing the total inadequacy of the Men- 
delian "laws" (considered in the chapter on 
Mr. Burbank's theories and conclusions) when 
applied to actual breeding. The words which 
follow from Mr. Burbank on this point are 
particularly important because of the fact that 
they come from a man who has had greater 
opportunity, and on a larger scale, to study 
new forms of plant-life and observe the mani- 

428 




Two seedling- walnuts, of the same age, from nuts of the 
same tree, having had precisely the same care: a striking illus- 
tration of unevenness in plant growth and of the importance of 
selection. 



THE NEW WORK 

festation of Nature when her old ways are 
broken up than any other man, hving or dead : 
it is the unparalleled scope of his work, coupled 
with the actual results he has observed, that 
make his words authoritative. He says : 

"The total inadequacy of these 'laws' has 
been shown over and over again when applied 
to actual breeding. When they were first pro- 
mulgated, the claim was often made that all 
plant-breeders must understand them or fail. 
How many plants of value have been pro- 
duced by a knowledge of these laws? How 
many successful breeders worry themselves 
about them ? No ; these ' laws ' have been 
shown not to apply, except in some rare 
instances." 

In all the new work which INIr. Burbank 
now has under way, he is confirming and 
strengthening in superb ftishion the positions 
he has taken, both scientific and practical. 
And while he believes with increasing earnest- 
ness, as the years bring their proofs, in the all- 
powerful influence of the Crossing of Species ; 
while he pays deeper attention, year by year, 
to the mysterious and elusive phases of the 
manifestations of nature, ever seeking to strip 

429 



NEW CREATIONS IN PLANT LIFE 

them of their strangeness ; while he sees deeper 
into, and more broadly fortifies himself with, 
the immutable facts of heredity as it has ap- 
peared to him ; while he goes still closer and 
closer into the life of the plants, measuring, 
defining, analyzing, he has, at the same time, 
neglected no sign nor cast aside any proof of 
the great fact of Evolution, nor has he hesi- 
tated to set apart and apply with his own 
hand means which Nature has so long made 
use of in her great scheme of the evolution of 
the plant, the human being, the universe. 



430 




A cactus blossom 



THE SURVIVAL OF 
THE UNLHiE 

A Collection of Evolution Essays Suggested by the 
Study of Domestic Plants 

By L. H. BAILEY 

Professor of Horticulture in Cornell University 

515 Pages. 22 Illustrations. $2.00 

To those interested in the underlying philosophy of plant life, 
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
64-66 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK 



I 



THE EVOLUTION OF 
OUR INATIVE FRUITS 

By L. H. BAILEY 

Professor of Horticulture in Cornell University 
472 Pages 125 Iulustraiions. $2.00 

In this entertaining volume, the origin and development of the 
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The Evolution of our Native Fruits discusses The Rise of 
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Commercial Viticulture, Why Did the Early Vine Experiments 
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the Mulberries (The Early Silk Industry, The " Multicaulis Craze"); 
Evolution of American Plums and Cherries (Native Plums in 
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Cherries, Dwarf Cherry Group); Native Apples (Indigenous 
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Cranberry, Strawberry) ; Various Types of Tree Fruits ( Persim- 
mon, Custard-Apple, Tribe, Thorn-Apples, Nut-Fruits) ; General 
Remarks on the Improvement of our Native Fruits (What Has 
Been Done, What Probably Should Be Done). 



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THE 

OUTLOOK TO NATURE 

By L. H. BAILEY 

Professor of Horticulture in Cornell University, 
Editor of "The Cyclopedia of American Horticulture," etc., etc. 

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varieties of plants in the matter of luxuriant bloom and length of 
time for blossoming, and much information to be appreciated only 
by those who have raised a healthy garden by the slow teachings 
of personal experience. " — New York Times Saturday Review. 



ANOTHER 
HARDY GARDEN BOOK 

By HELENA RUTHERFURD ELY 

With Forty-nine Illustrations from Photographs taken in the 
Author's Garden 

By PROFESSOR C. F. CHANDLER 

Cloth. 12mo. $1.75, Nct 

"Mrs. Ely is the wisest and most winning teacher of the 
fascinating art of gardening that we have met in modern print." 

— New York Tribune. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

64-66 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK 



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